Description: Ajami delves beneath the familiar picture of Iraq--a land where sectarianism clashes with fundamentalism, modernity with tradition, democracy with nationalism--to get at the underlying truths of real Iraqi's lives and desires, and thereby at the real forces at work in Iraq every day.
Brief description: Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report and a consultant to CBS News on Middle Eastern affairs. Ajami is a frequent contributor to Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and other periodicals and outlets worldwide. Born in Lebanon and raised in Beirut, he is based in New York City.
Review Quotes: "Ajami draws on a variety of contemporary texts, mostly unknown or inaccessible to Western authors.... The result, based on six extended visits to Iraq and a lifetime of travel and experience, is the best and most idiosyncratic recent treatment of the American presence there. A series of firsthand portraits, often brilliantly subtle, of some fascinating players in contemporary Iraq." -- Victor Davis Hanson, Commentary