Last Train to Cairo


Book Description

LAST TRAIN TO CAIRO follows the author and his wife on a chaotic but unforgettable journey through Egypt in the summer of 2014. The intrepid couple travel across Egypt by bus, train, and hired car from Cairo and Giza to Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Hurghada, and Alexandria. Along the way they tour ancient sites and hike across modern cities on a trip for the ages.Their odyssey begins with a midnight ride through the streets of Cairo to the pyramids of Giza. Traffic fills the night with blaring horns, roaring motors, and shouting drivers. A wedding party dances in the street and fireworks light the sky. Days later, bombs tear through a crowded subway platform, protesters march in the streets, and soldiers stand guard on every corner. Yet, like a Siren, Egypt teases the two travelers with its song, compelling the curious couple across the restless country.A travel narrative filled with wonder, frustration, and anxiety, LAST TRAIN TO CAIRO is populated with a cast of memorable characters from across Egypt: a hustler, an English teacher, an Egyptologist, expats, taxi drivers, and a riverboat captain named Gin Tonic, among many others. To their voices, the author adds historical context and a bit of humor to deliver a vivid look at Egypt in the twenty-first century.




The Last Train to Zona Verde


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The world's most acclaimed travel writer journeys through western Africa from Cape Town to the Congo.




Pioneer to the Past


Book Description

Pioneer to the Past tells the intensely human, often poignantly moving story of the brilliant career of James Henry Breasted, one of the greatest Egyptologists and archaeologists America has yet produced. Breasted's greatest achievement was the founding of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in 1919, through the generous support of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The Oriental Institute embodies Breasted's vision of an inter-disciplinary research center that unites archaeology, textual studies, and art history as three complementary methodologies to provide a holistic understanding of ancient Near Eastern civilizations, and the ways that they laid the foundations for what we think of today as "Western civilization." Breasted's legacy continues to flourish today. Reprint of the Scribner's Sons 1943 Edition, with New Foreword and Photographs.





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War of Shadows


Book Description

In this World War II military history, Rommel's army is a day from Cairo, a week from Tel Aviv, and the SS is ready for action. Espionage brought the Nazis this far, but espionage can stop them—if Washington wakes up to the danger. As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets. Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began. War of Shadows is the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.




Last Train from Berlin


Book Description

"In novels such as The Ants of God and Rogue's March, W. T. Tyler has earned a reputation as one of our very best authors. Whether writing about dictators on the African bush, the machinations of the Kremlin, or the equally mystifying antics of Washington's officialdom, Tyler views our global and national affairs with irony, pitch-perfect realism, and mordant insight in to the hubris and folly of great and lesser men alike." "In the Last Train from Berlin, Tyler weaves together the tragedies of two men's lives - one American, one Russian - to produce what may be the most powerful indictment of, and most searching elegy to, the tragic waste of the four-decade-long Cold War." "When Frank Dudley, a longtime Agency man languishing in the twilight of his career, vanishes without a trace, a junior officer, Kevin Corkey, new to the CIA and unsure he belongs there among the policy mandarins and "black ops" cowboys, is assigned the case. Has the missing man met with foul play? Or has Dudley, a disgruntled member of the old school and the subject of polite contempt, though still a man who knows where a great many skeletons lie buried, hatched a scheme for revenge against those who have passed him by?" "The answer - one young Corkey and the reader will learn only at the end of this gripping tale - is as profound, complex, and tragic as the history of the covert war between our century's two greatest superpowers. Treating issues of fidelity and betrayal, exile and alienation, Last Train from Berlin is a memorable achievement."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved










A World I Loved


Book Description

"This is my story, the story of an Arab woman. It is the story of a lost world. It begins in 1917, in Lebanon, when I was seven years old." So opens this haunting memoir by Wadad Makdisi Cortas, who eloquently describes her personal experience of the events that have fractured the Middle East over the past century. Through Cortas' eyes we experience life in Lebanon under the oppressive French mandate, and her desire to forge an Arab identity based on religious tolerance. We learn of her dedication to the education of women, and the difficulties that she overcomes to become the principal of a school in Lebanon. And in final, heartbreaking detail, we watch as her world becomes rent by the "Palestine question," Western interference, and civil war. The World I Loved is both an elegy on Lebanon and her people, and the unforgettable story of one woman's journey from hope to sorrow as she bears painful witness to the undoing of her beloved country by sectarian and religious division.