A Raid on the Red Sea


Book Description

""A Raid on the Red Sea" is a thrilling, real-life story of gun-running and the intelligence and military operation that foiled it"--




Red Sea


Book Description

Fourteen-year-old Libby didn't want to go on a year long sailing adventure with her mother and her stepfather, Duncan, and she isn't about to let them forget it. Traveling through the Red Sea, Libby causes them to be late and make a dangerous crossing alone. When modern-day pirates attack, Duncan is killed and Libby's mother is left seriously injured and unconscious. Libby is left alone on a crippled boat to find safety and help for her mother. Libby must call on all her strength and face some hard truths about herself if she is to survive and reach land. A thrilling tale of one girl's struggle for survival against the elements and her inner demons, Red Sea is adventure writing at its best.




Red Sea Spies


Book Description

THE TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE NETFLIX FILM THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT. 'Secret missions, brazen deceptions and thrilling, clandestine operations - Red Sea Spies has it all. But it has something more important, too - a genuine human mission that made a difference.' David Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy '[A] thrilling and meticulous account.' The Times In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who had been languishing in refugee camps, and the spiriting of them to Israel. Written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and including an afterword from the commander who went on to become the head of the Mossad, this is the complete, never-before-heard, gripping tale of a top-secret and often hazardous operation. 'Red Sea Spies is what really happened. There is none of the Hollywood colouring-in, and yet the book is all the more vivid for it ... part thriller, part dark comedy, all true ... Berg brings out the native drama in an improbable story of a clandestine homecoming.' Spectator




The Red Sea


Book Description

The Red Sea has, from time immemorial, been one of the world’s most navigated spaces, in the pursuit of trade, pilgrimage and conquest. Yet this multidimensional history remains largely unrevealed by its successive protagonists. Intrigued by the absence of a holistic portrayal of this body of water and inspired by Fernand Braudel’s famous work on the Mediterranean, this book brings alive a dynamic Red Sea world across time, revealing the particular features of a unique historical actor. In capturing this heretofore lost space, it also presents a critical, conceptual history of the sea, leading the reader into the heart of Eurocentrism. The Sea, it is shown, is a vital element of the modern philosophy of history. Alexis Wick is not satisfied with this inclusion of the Red Sea into history and attendant critique of Eurocentrism. Contrapuntally, he explores how the world and the sea were imagined differently before imperial European hegemony. Searching for the lost space of Ottoman visions of the sea, The Red Sea makes a deeper argument about the discipline of history and the historian’s craft.




The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate


Book Description

This book examines the historic process traditionally referred to as the fall of Rome and rise of Islam from the perspective of the Red Sea, a strategic waterway linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and a distinct region incorporating Africa with Arabia. The transition from Byzantium to the Caliphate is contextualized in the contestation of regional hegemony between Aksumite Ethiopia, Sasanian Iran, and the Islamic Hijaz. The economic stimulus associated with Arab colonization is then considered, including the foundation of ports and roads linking new metropolises and facilitating commercial expansion, particularly gold mining and the slave trade. Finally, the economic inheritance of the Fatimids and the formation of the commercial networks glimpsed in the Cairo Geniza is contextualized in the diffusion of the Abbasid 'bourgeois revolution' and resumption of the 'India trade' under the Tulunids and Ziyadids. Tim Power's careful analysis reveals the complex cultural and economic factors that provided a fertile ground for the origins of the Islamic civilization to take root in the Red Sea region, offering a new perspective on a vital period of history.




Thought, Culture, and Historiography in Christian Egypt, 284-641 AD


Book Description

This book contains 15 papers which were presented by specialists from Europe and Egypt at two conferences held at Ain Shams University, Egypt, in 2014 and 2015. Eight of the articles deal with the history of Late Antique Egypt in its manifold aspects, from monasticism and Coptic manuscripts, to the organization of the Arab conquest. The other seven contributions provide new writings from that historical period published here for the first time, or give new readings of texts earlier known as inscriptions, papyri and ostraca, and offer a close-up look at the historical setting outlined in the first part of this book.




Lords of the Red Sea


Book Description

Habab polity was, within living memory, one of a lord (Shumagalle) and serf (Tigre) relationship. In the 1870s/1880s, the Habab were subjected to pressures from the strong characters ruling in the surrounding lands: Ras Alula in the Hamasien, the Mahdist Emir Osman Digna, Colonel Kitchener, Governor of the Anglo-Egyptian enclave of Suakin, and in Massaua the Egyptians and later the Italians. In 1887, the Kantibai of the Habab signed a treaty of Protection with the Italians. In the period from 1887 to 1895, the Habab, in a fraught process, had to come to terms with the European concept of sovereignty. Anthony D'Avray's work is primarily based on documents left by Italian administrators based at Nakfa in Eritrea in the late 19th century. They reported matters of current importance, and also the extensive oral traditions of the Habab and other peoples of the Red Sea coasts. Other primary sources, notably from the Public Record Office in London supplement the Nakfa documents.










The History of Portugal


Book Description

This informative, concise, and engagingly written work provides the most up-to-date history of Portugal, current through 1999, and gives a full picture of the political, social, cultural, and economic influences that shaped the history of Portugal. Covering the period from Portugal's early conception as a nation through its long history, with emphasis on the dramatic period of the last several decades, this volume culminates with the demise of the Salazar dictatorship and the independence of its colonies. Complete with a timeline for easy reference to events, brief biographies of important people, lists of monarchs and heads of state, and a bibliographic essay, it is the ideal companion for the student or interested reader. In nine chapters, Anderson discusses the geography of Portugal, its prehistoric antecedents, its formation as a nation, and the events that once made it a world leader in exploration, discovery, and imperial power. How and why the country was drawn into the orbit of its large neighbor, Spain, lost much of its empire, and yet managed to regain its independence are examined, along with the trials and tribulations encountered on its journey from monarchy to modern republic. The discussion presents the factors that kept Portugal one of the poorest nations in Europe for most of its existence and the reasons that it is now, leading into the 21st century, closing the economic gap with wealthier nations.