Ethan Bronner
Along for the ride, readers are treated to clear and well-rendered accounts of Kefaya, the fledgling Egyptian dissident movement; the history of Iran's quest for nuclear power; the beginnings of Hezbollah; and fascinating tidbits like an early mention of the Kurds as a nation and how the Katyusha rocket, got its name. While this is an engaging tour of a complex area, the problem is that the moment of promise that set Ms. Wright off on her trip—the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon combined with the Iraqi, Palestinian and Egyptian elections all in quick succession—has turned distinctly sour…That said, there is much to be gained from joining her on her trip. In some ways the subsequent failures of reform lend poignancy.
—The New York Times
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Readers sometimes complain that newspapers print only bad news. Well, Wright is in fact an optimist, and she has done her best to give the good news. She describes the way many brave and decent people are struggling to free their countries from autocracy or worse, and she seeks out "a budding culture of change." In one country after another, men and women want to use economic empowerment and freedom of expression, enhanced by new technology, as the means to political liberation. But she is an honest reporter, and the story that emerges from this book is not quite the one she would like to tell. She cannot conceal the truth that change is slow to come when it comes at all…Robin Wright's book ought to teach our rulers a thing or two, but they often seem quite unteachable.
—The Washington Post
Patrick Cockburn
Wright has long been one of the best-informed American journalists covering the Middle East, and her reputation is borne out here. She is refreshingly skeptical of conventional wisdom about what is happening in the region, and her book will be essential reading for anybody who wants to know where it is heading.
—The New York Times Book Review
Kirkus Reviews
An astute assessment of the state of the Middle East, by a longtime reporter and observer of the scene. Washington Post foreign-policy correspondent Wright brings some good tidings from the region: "In the early twenty-first century," she writes, "a budding culture of change is...imaginatively challenging the status quo-and even the extremists." Some members of this culture-they've been called the "pyjamahedeen"-blog, write letters to the editor, protest on the street; others exercise subtle resistance, as with the Iranian women who wear their headscarves "precariously at the crown of the head to expose as much of a beautifully coifed hairdo as possible without falling off." Whatever their form of protest, these men and women face much danger as ignorers of fatwas and potential heretics. Wright travels widely across the region to seek out these agents of change, though her profiles often concern those whom they are fighting. One militant, for instance, set the tone of decrying the supposed licentiousness of Western women half a century ago-his acolytes today press the charge, even as their female compatriots flock to see Hollywood movies and dress in Western fashions. That does not dissuade the true believers. As Wright notes, they're still busily seeking to transcend the Arabic world with an Islamic superstate, a caliphate that will rule the whole of humankind-once they settle such pesky problems as whether Sunni or Shia Islam is to prevail, drive America out of Iraq and force women to don the veil. Despite them, and despite the overwhelming view that America will be defeated in Iraq, there is even better news. Wright reports that "the majority of the people in the Middle East still[want] the kind of political change that has swept the rest of the world over the past quarter century."A fine set of dispatches from the front. Agent: Esther Newberg/ICM
Boston Globe
A thought-provoking and eminently readable look at the current and future generation of leaders in that important, politically troubled region.”
The New York Times
Fluent and intelligent.... Wright has long been one of the best-informed American journalists covering the Middle East, and her reputation is borne out here.
From the Publisher
"Wright has long been one of the best-informed American journalists covering the Middle East, and her reputation is born out here....Her book will be essential reading for anybody who wants to know where it is heading." -The New York Times Book Review
"If there is such a thing as a pinnacle in the landscape of international journalism, Robin Wright surely stands atop it." -The New York Review of Books
"A thought-provoking and eminently readable look at the current and future generation of leaders in that important, politically troubled region. . . . Wright's skills at old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting are very much in evidence." -The Boston Globe
JULY 2008 - AudioFile
Journalist Robin Wright has witnessed and reported on thirty years of Middle East politics and events. Her knowledge and personal contacts are woven into a substantial text that does not translate easily into an audio experience. Narrator Laural Merlington keeps her reading carefully neutral and changes her delivery style to distinguish dialogue from narrative. But Merlington's delivery doesn't quite match Wright's scholarly tone or savvy political analysis. Wright is sending a clear message about the United States’ current occupation of Iraq, but Merlington doesn't deliver the message with the same force. Furthermore, the number of countries covered and sources quoted requires access to a map and to the extensive footnotes in order to make sense of the political picture Wright describes. R.F. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
