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Book description
Authors Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, experts on Middle East history and politics, have combined their expertise to write what is largely considered the definitive work of one of the world's most reviled and notorious figures. Drawing on a wealth of Iraqi, Arab, Western and Israeli sources, including interviews with people who have had close contact with Saddam Hussein throughout his career, the authors trace the meteoric transformation of an ardent nationalist and obscure Ba'th party member into an absolute dictator. Skillfully interweaving a realistic analysis of Gulf politics and history, and now including a new introduction and epilogue, this authoritative biography is essential for understanding the mind of a modern tyrant.
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Reviews (1) and details of Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography

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Book description
In The Threatening Storm, Kenneth M. Pollack, one of the world’s leading experts on Iraq, provides a masterly insider’s perspective on the crucial issues facing the United States as it moves toward a new confrontation with Saddam Hussein. For the past fifteen years, as an analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, Kenneth Pollack has studied Saddam as closely as anyone else in the United States. In 1990, he was one of only three CIA analysts to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. As the principal author of the CIA’s history of Iraqi military strategy and operations during the Gulf War, Pollack gained rare insight into the methods and workings of what he believes to be the most brutal regime... Rest of this review on the detail page
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Reviews (1) and details of The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq

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Review:
A great book about one of the most interesting projects to be thought of in space-travel. What may sound like total 1950's era science-fiction to us nowadays, propelling a space ship using nuclear explosions was once a serious research project. George Dyson takes us on a tour of where the idea came from and how research budgets became available for theory and some very limited practical testing. The book is an entertaining read and not too technical. For those who do want the "how was that supposed to work" bit, there are original diagrams and explanations in the book.
(Review by Koos van den Hout)
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Reviews (3) and details of Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship

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Book description
A Look Over My Shoulder, by Richard Helms, begins with President Nixon’s attempt to embroil the Central Intelligence Agency, of which Helms was then the director, in the Watergate cover-up. Helms then recalls his education in Switzerland and Germany and at Williams College; his early career as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, during which he once lunched with Hitler; and his return to newspaper work in the United States. Helms served on the German desk at OSS headquarters in London; subsequently, he was assigned to Allen Dulles’s Berlin office in postwar Germany. On his return to Washington, Helms assumed responsibility for the OSS carryover operations in Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He remained in this post unti... Rest of this review on the detail page
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Reviews (1) and details of A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the CIA

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Book description
The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa. The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa -- the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster -- was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and ... Rest of this review on the detail page
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Reviews (2) and details of Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883