Syed Shabbar Zaidi shares his journey in a compelling story of an unplanned life-achieving extraordinary successes and facing insightful failures. It is a sketch of a vibrant life in two culturally and politically diverse cities of Lahore and Karachi with a short excruciating stint in Islamabad.The author has looked back into the political history and genesis of the state of Pakistan. It started from the book Pakistan & Partition of India by Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar in 1940, all the way to the hybrid regime of Imran Khan and General Bajwa in 2019.This book is also a recital of the tenure of a Chairman Federal Board of Revenue from the private sector, who failed to deliver despite, real or perceived, support from public, political forces and the establishment.

BooksA Forever WarColin ShindlerBuyFor over a century, the Middle East has been riven by conflict driven by Jewish and Arab nationalism. They came about at the same point in history with claims over the same territory. Their encounter has evolved into one of the most enduring and divisive geopolitical issues of the modern era – one defined by its complexity and its extremism and unfolding against a backdrop of 24-hour rolling news and social-media outrage. A Forever War: Israel, Palestine and the Struggles for Statehood reflects on the key questions: How did this state of affairs come about? And will it be a forever war?At a time when so much coverage is based on prejudice, fear and ignorance, Colin Shindler, Emeritus Professor of Israel Studies at SOAS, presents an authoritative view of this tragic conflict and dissects the current situation. Tracing the religious, political and historical motivations of both sides throughout many decades of turmoil and upheaval, A Forever War is the concise and non-partisan overview of the conflict that is so sorely needed.

"Since October 2023, Israel has carried out one of the most brutal military onslaughts in modern history on the Gaza Strip, in response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7. But Gaza had long been in crisis even prior to the current violence, now widely recognized as genocidal. For seventy-seven years, the Palestinian people have endured displacement, occupation, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing - with those in Gaza often bearing the brunt of it. Historian Anne Irfan tells the story of the Gaza Strip through six pivotal moments in its modern history, beginning with Israel's expulsion of the Palestinian people upon its establishment in 1948, when Gaza absorbed more Palestinian refugees per head than anywhere else - a demographic shift that became central to its identity. As Irfan takes us through Israel's occupations of Gaza, the Palestinian national struggle and formation of the PLO, the first intifada, the creation of the Palestinian Authority, and the rise of Hamas, she tackles widespread historical ignorance and untangles contradicting narratives. Drawing on a decade of research, Irfan weaves in the voices of everyday Palestinians, from farmers who became refugees in Gaza to poets and activists who grew up in the Strip. Featuring a foreword from Gazan writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada, A Short History of the Gaza Strip is an indispensable read for anyone seeking to understand Palestine and its impact on the world." -- Adapted from publisher's description.

The first comprehensive critical biography of Muhammad ibn Isma¿il al-Bukhari Presents the first comprehensive critical biography of al-Bukhari, offering an in-depth examination of his personal life and scholarly careerMeticulously documents al-Bukhari's extensive travels in collecting and teaching hadith, and traces the development of his intellectual trajectoryOffers a thorough analysis of al-Bukhari's method and principles of hadith criticismExamines al-Bukhari's legal scholarship, exploring both his methodology and legal reasoningProvides a rigorous assessment of al-Bukhari's theological views and delivers a systematic study of the Quranic controversy that marked the final years of his life Muhammad ibn Isma¿il al-Bukhari (d. 256/870) stands as one of the most distinguished figures in Islamic intellectual history. His magnum opus, the ¿a¿i¿, is revered as the most authoritative collection of Prophetic traditions in Sunni Islam and is the most cited book in Islamic history. Beyond its juridical and theological significance, the ¿a¿i¿ was venerated in pre-modern societies as a source of spiritual blessings, recited to invoke divine favour, seek salvation, and even bring rain. Al-Bukhari's legacy endures, shaping Islamic scholarship and devotion to this day.This pioneering critical study offers the first comprehensive examination of al-Bukhari's life, intellectual trajectory and the socio-political landscape that influenced his scholarship. It meticulously analyses his methods of hadith criticism and explores his engagement with the theological and legal discourse of his time. Through an extensive study of the theological debates he engaged with and the masa'il (legal cases) in which he challenged ¿anafi authorities, this book sheds new light on the legal landscape that underpinned his work. Providing both historical depth and analytical rigour, it is an essential contribution to the study of Islamic legal and hadith traditions

From the Gulf War to Gaza, a compelling critique of how and why Washington ensnared itself so destructively in the Middle East.After Hamas' shocking 2023 attack on Israel, the United States stood firmly behind Israel's near-genocidal war on Gaza, despite widespread moral outrage and significant damage to Washington's global agenda. But Gaza is only the latest paradox in thirty-five years of Middle East policy. How did this pattern develop, why can't policymakers learn from repeated Middle Eastern calamities, and what does Gaza's destruction mean for America's place in the world?Marc Lynch charts the United States' disastrously failed approach to the post-Cold War Middle East, where aspirations for US leadership and a calm region have only produced war, instability and humanitarian catastrophe. Lynch exposes the failure of each president's efforts to transform the Middle East in America's image, or pivot away from the region; Washington's refusal to take seriously the views of Middle Easterners; and its fantasy of forging a regional order 'without' the Palestinian issue.Moving between American politics and Middle Eastern realities, this incisive account explains why US policy has not changed despite its horrifying human costs, from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Yemen and Libya.

Control the sea, and you control everything...a gripping tale of naval warfare, dynastic rivalry, and technical innovation, from the author of the classic work Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea? Based on ten years of research and a lifetime of immersion in Mongol culture and tradition, Emperor of the Seas brings this little-known story vibrantly to life.Kublai Khan is one of history's most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world's largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.By the end of his reign, the Chinese were building and supplying remarkable ships to transport men, grain, and weapons over vast distances, of a size and dexterity that would be inconceivable in Europe for hundreds of years. Khan had come to a brilliant control the sea, and you control everything.A master storyteller with an unparalleled grasp of Mongol sources, Jack Weatherford shows how Chinese naval hegemony changed the world forever - revolutionizing world commerce and transforming tastes as far away as England and France.

One of the most distinctive and funny politicians, Senator John Kennedy (the one from Louisiana)—hailed by Politico as “America’s most quotable Senator”—offers his perceptive (and hilarious) takes on the ridiculousness of political life in this scathingly witty takedown of Washington and its elite denizens.How to Test Negative for Stupid offers the Senator’s tongue-in-cheek guidebook through Washington, punctuated by his thoughts on various issues and humorous stories about life from Louisiana politics and inside the Senate.From the mind—and mouth—of "America's Most Quotable Senator":“Always be yourself . . . unless you suck.”“I say this gently: This is why the aliens won’t talk to us.”“If you trust government, you obviously failed history class.”“I believe that our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.”“Always follow your heart . . . but take your brain with you.”“I’m not going to Bubble Wrap it: The water in Washington, D.C., won’t clear up until you get the pigs out of the creek.”“I have the right to remain silent but not the ability.”“Common sense is illegal in Washington, D.C., I know. I’ve seen it firsthand.”“I believe that we are going to have to get some new conspiracy theories. All the old ones turned out to be true.”

In LEGENDA, bestselling historian Professor Janina Ramirez peels back the layers of time to reveal how the lives of women have been co-opted by those intent on crafting national identities. Their names are well known, and summaries of their achievements have been recited in classrooms for decades, but medieval women like Joan of Arc, Lady Godiva and Isabella of Castile have been misrepresented, their stories twisted and weaponised. Meanwhile, ground-breaking 18th- and 19th-century women who blazed a trail through revolutionary Europe have been forgotten, their legacies too easily dismissed or ignored.Questioning established narratives and searching for the real women behind the legends, Ramirez interrogates what defines a nation and who gets to build it, shining a light on how history is so often hijacked to serve the ideological and political interests of the present.

The book addresses why the Pakistani state is facing persistent challenges in extending and consolidating its governance (authority) throughout its territories, especially in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (ex-FATA)? Even after the de jure merger, the question still remains valid that how Pakistani state could establish its governance in these tribal areas? Through multi-dimensional approaches and multi-pronged analysis of state-centric (top-down), society-centric (bottom-up) and state-in-society (mixed-horizontal) approaches, the book explains factors and dimensions that pose challenges to Pakistani state governance in ex-FATA. The main hypothesis is that societies, where state governance is absent, turn to informal governance and create informal institutions as a substitute for the weak central state governance thereby challenging the domination and control/authority of the state. The book presents policy recommendations for bringing these tribal areas into the mainstream governance system of Pakistan.

For over 100 years Palestinians have resisted colonial occupation, displacement and dispossession. Yet much of their long history of resistance has remained hidden. Palestine, Imperialism and the Struggle for Freedom follows their struggles against Britain, the Zionist settler movement, and the state of Israel and its powerful allies.

From a leading defense and security analyst, Statecraft will unlock your understanding of how nations collaborate, compete, and fight.Why did Russia struggle in the early months of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Why does Israel repeatedly ignore international pressure on Gaza? Why does the UK spend billions on aircraft carriers it struggles to support at sea? How do smaller states shape world events when dwarfed by superpowers?The world today is gripped by conflict at a scale not seen since the Cold War. Whether in Ukraine, the Middle East, or Taiwan, we are in a period of intense power competition. In Statecraft, Dr. Jack Watling takes you into wood-paneled offices to meet the world's power brokers, or the bunkers from which battles are coordinated, and explains the mechanics behind these struggles for supremacy.Informed by a career on the ground in conflict zones and advising generals and political leaders, Watling examines the crucial dilemmas that states face to get ahead, no matter their size. From economic alliances and global trade to sea power and military technology, Statecraft provides a powerful new framework to understand an increasingly divided world

"From the long-tenured head of an institution legendary for its far-sighted culture of success, a candid memoir of global leadership in an age of extreme turbulence When Lloyd Blankfein was attacked as a Wall Street fat cat, he had to smile, thinking of his precarious childhood in the notorious public housing projects of East New York, Brooklyn, and a high school so chaotic he didn't feel safe enough to use the bathroom once in his time there. Harvard was a total moon shot, and his outsider status never wore off, there or at Harvard Law. When he struck people as street-y, it wasn't Wall Street they were thinking of. But if the chip never quite left the shoulder, neither did a wry, resilient spirit, and a lucid, democratic intelligence that saw through airs and found talent and ideas in unlikely places. Street Wise is a delightfully honest, sharp and often very funny reckoning with the author's education-in finance, human nature, and the workings of the world. It abounds with lessons-about leading teams of brilliant, aggressive, competitive people and harmonizing them around shared goals; about changing when times are hard and when they're good; about managing risk; and about knowing a crisis is at hand before it swamps you, and guiding your team to the farther shore. Blankfein is famed for his calm hand on Goldman's tiller during the global financial crisis, and that story is told in full here, among many other decisive episodes. Suffusing Street Wise is the author's deep and abiding respect for the partnership culture of Goldman Sachs. We follow the never-ending work to protect and preserve that culture through all sorts of tumult-the challenge behind every other challenge. He is open about when he and the firm got it wrong, which was often enough, but the creative, risk-taking spirit was never snuffed, even as the failsafes put in place to protect against downside risk to the firm and its clients held when they were needed the most. A marvelous blueprint for the wise stewardship of a cause that is larger than yourself, Street Wise will inspire and inform readers throughout the global business community, and beyond"-- Provided by publisher.

For the first time, the star of Platoon, Wall Street, Major League and Two and a Half Men writes the story of his extraordinary life in an unfiltered memoir.

On August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky invited a man he knew only as Jacques Mornard into his study. Mornard waited for Trotsky to sit, then smashed an ice pick he had hidden in his raincoat into Trotsky's skull. For over a decade, Trotsky's greatest enemy, Joseph Stalin, had been trying to arrange his murder. Stalin's agents had hunted him across Europe and into a lonely, bitter exile in Mexico. He had liquidated Trotsky's family and friends, and yet Trotsky had always escaped his clutches. The man who changed this all was Ramón Mercader, a minor Spanish aristocrat and Soviet agent who had posed as Mornard, a dissolute Belgian playboy, and infiltrated Trotsky's inner circle. In The Death of Trotsky, Josh Ireland traces the separate paths walked by each of these protagonists as they steadily draw closer and closer to that fateful encounter on August 20. Blending intimate historical detail and thrilling historical narrative, swinging from Moscow to Paris to Mexico, and taking in a cast of morally conflicted Russian spies, fanatical Mexican painters, and innocent American idealists, The Death of Trotsky delves into the lives of two fascinating, complex men locked in a life-or-death struggle that would bend the course of history"--Publisher's description

"In 1914, the Ottoman government took its empire to war with the hope of "saving its people and its homeland." Over the course of the next four years, that same government killed more of its own citizens-men, women, and children-than enemy guns, allowed hundreds of thousands of its people to starve to death, lost perhaps as many as a million men in uniform, and surrendered more than half of its territory. The First World War put an end to a state that had governed vast territories and diverse populations for over six centuries. Why was the First World War in the Ottoman empire so destructive? What were the roots of such violence? In The War That Made the Middle East, historian Mustafa Aksakal argues that the answer lies in the curious position of the Ottoman empire as both a colonized and a colonizing state. The Young Turks ruling from Istanbul saw themselves as taking up arms against foreign control and occupation in a war for survival. As Aksakal sees it, the pressure from the British, Russia, and French empires especially lent brutal urgency to the governing elite's calculations. On the other hand, opposition groups inside the empire fought their own anti-colonialism against these very same leaders. The paradox of the Ottoman empire's situation provoked a violent spiral that ended in the devastation of the populace. Offering a new interpretation of World War I from the Ottoman perspective, this book explains the motivations on all sides of the fighting and tracks with equal attention the experience of ordinary people when decisions in Istanbul landed with disastrous consequences across Ottoman lands. A new history of the "Great War's" great destruction, this book explains why the Middle East arguably has not yet recovered even today"--

"From award winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable. In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interconnected stories. They're stories of Nazis, Kennedys, Operation Paperclip, and Walt Disney; of the Apollo mission and the Space shuttle Challenger disaster. Paveway inadvertently sparked the personal computing revolution and the adoption of GPS, it ushered in the era of modern warfare, and it shows up at critical historical moments throughout the last half century. At once revelatory and deeply human, The Warhead unearths the complicated truth behind one of the most significant weapons of our time"-- Provided by publisher.

Two insiders explain why the Israeli–Palestinian peace process failed, and anticipate what lies ahead.On October 7, 2023, Hamas fighters killed more than eleven hundred Israelis and took more than two hundred hostages, prompting an Israeli response that has in turn taken tens of thousands of lives and devastated the Gaza Strip. Why did this happen, and can anything be done to grant peace and justice to Israelis and Palestinians alike?In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, veteran negotiators Hussein Agha and Robert Malley offer a personal and bracing perspective on how the hopes of the Oslo Peace Process became the horrors of the present. Drawing on their experience advising the Palestinian leadership (Arafat and Abbas) and US presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) and their participation in secret talks over decades, Agha and Malley offer candid portraits of leading figures and an interpretation of the conflict that exposes the delusions of all sides. They stress that the two-state solution became a global goal only when it was no longer viable; that US officials preferred technical schemes to a frank reckoning with the past; that Hamas’s onslaught and Israel’s war of destruction were not historical exceptions but historical reenactments; and that the gaps separating Israelis and Palestinians have less to do with territorial allocation than with history and emotions.