Overview

What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the twenty-first century: Turkey and Iran. Besides proposing this new 'power triangle', Kinzer also recommends that the United States reshape relations with its two traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. This book provides a penetrating, timely critique of America's approach to the world's most volatile region, and offers a startling alternative. Kinzer is a master storyteller with an eye for grand characters and illuminating historical detail. In this book, he introduces us to larger-than-life figures, like a Nebraska schoolteacher who became a martyr to democracy in Iran, a Turkish radical who transformed his country and Islam forever, and a colourful parade of princes, politicians, women of the world, spies, oppressors, liberators, and dreamers. Kinzer's provocative new view of the Middle East is the rare look that will richly entertain while moving a vital policy debate beyond the stale alternatives of the last fifty years.

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9780805091274

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Reviews

Fresh and well-informed. . . . Kinzer argues persuasively that despite their very different governments -- one friendly and free, the other hostile and theocratic -- both Turkey and Iran are host to vibrant democratic traditions that make them natural long-term partners of the United States. . . . [A] lively, character-driven approach to history. --The Washington Post Because we're so accustomed to bad news out of the Middle East, trouble seems inevitable. Reset suggests that needn't be so. But can anybody hear its lucid, historically grounded points above the shouting and the gunfire? --Chicago Tribune At once a stern critique of American foreign policy and a concise, colorful, and compelling modern history of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. A former journalist for The New York Times and The Boston Globe, Kinzer is a masterful storyteller. His cast of characters leaps off the page... Kinzer makes a compelling case... that the road to peace in the Middle East runs through Ankara and Tehran, not Jerusalem. --NPR.org In Reset, [Kinzer] proposes a radical new course for the United States in the region. The United States, he argues, needs to partner with Iran and Turkey to create a 'powerful triangle' whose activities would promote a culture of democracy and combat extremism. . . . Kinzer's U.S.-Iranian-Turkish alliance is a long-term project, and the idea has ample grounding in the modern history of the region. Unlike other Muslim countries there, Kinzer shows, Iran and Turkey have at last a century's worth of experience struggling for political freedom . . . [and] share some fundamental values with the United States. -- Foreign Affairs The main message is intriguing. - The Economist An original, unsettling critique . . . [and] an imaginative solution to the Middle-East stalemate. --Kirkus Reviews Kinzer re-imagines the world and America's role in it. --Robert Lacey, author of Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Terrorists, Modernists, and the Strugg

“Fresh and well-informed. . . . Kinzer argues persuasively that despite their very different governments -- one friendly and free, the other hostile and theocratic -- both Turkey and Iran are host to vibrant democratic traditions that make them natural long-term partners of the United States. . . . [A] lively, character-driven approach to history.”--The Washington Post “Because we’re so accustomed to bad news out of the Middle East, trouble seems inevitable. Reset suggests that needn’t be so. But can anybody hear its lucid, historically grounded points above the shouting and the gunfire?”—Chicago Tribune “At once a stern critique of American foreign policy and a concise, colorful, and compelling modern history of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. A former journalist for The New York Times and The Boston Globe, Kinzer is a masterful storyteller. His cast of characters leaps off the page… Kinzer makes a compelling case

Fresh and well-informed. . . . Kinzer argues persuasively that despite their very different governments -- one friendly and free, the other hostile and theocratic -- both Turkey and Iran are host to vibrant democratic traditions that make them natural long-term partners of the United States. . . . [A] lively, character-driven approach to history. --The Washington Post Because we're so accustomed to bad news out of the Middle East, trouble seems inevitable. Reset suggests that needn't be so. But can anybody hear its lucid, historically grounded points above the shouting and the gunfire? --Chicago Tribune At once a stern critique of American foreign policy and a concise, colorful, and compelling modern history of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. A former journalist for The New York Times and The Boston Globe, Kinzer is a masterful storyteller. His cast of characters leaps off the page... Kinzer makes a compelling case... that the road to peace in the Middle East runs through An

Author Information

"Stephen Kinzer is the author of ""Reset,"" ""Overthrow,"" ""All the Shah's Men,"" ""Crescent and Star,"" and numerous other books. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as ""The New York Times's"" bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and as ""The Boston Globe's"" Latin America correspondent. He teaches international relations at Boston University and is a frequent contributor to ""The New York Review of Books"" and a columnist for ""The Guardian."" He lives in Boston."

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