Fear and Faith in Paradise

From life along the Tigris River in the 1970s to the ongoing Arab Spring uprisings, Phil Karber has witnessed decades of change throughout the Middle East. Fear and Faith in Paradise draws on his wealth of experience to sketch a timely and compelling portrait of the region throughout history. Seamlessly moving between past and present, Karber skillfully develops two overarching themes: How America's footprint can be shifted from a military to a humanitarian emphasis and how fear is used as a cudgel by today's monotheistic leaders to sacrifice the faithful. Whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, they all invoke their own vision of paradise, often as incentive, in hopeless conflicts that seem doomed to be repeated. Karber's down-to-earth writing vividly conveys the region's charm and beauty against a backdrop of power struggles among competing faiths, nationalisms, and outside forces.

Prologue: A Moment of OpportunityIntroduction: Terror in the Name of GodPart I: Wars of ChoiceChapter 1: Be Nice to AmericansChapter 2: Refugees from Iraq and Lebanon Flee to SyriaChapter 3: Holy Fools and the Red CrescentChapter 4: Made in AmericaChapter 5: Warlords and a Lebanese ProphetChapter 6: Poppy Fields, McDonalds, Armageddon, and the Loire ValleyChapter 7: Hezbollah and U.S. Cluster BombsChapter 8: Istanbul, Ground Zero in the Clash of CivilizationsChapter 9: Bombs Away on the PKKChapter 10: Peshmerga and Mercy CorpsChapter 11: Refugees, Water, Schools, Clinics, and WheelchairsChapter 12: It's the Oil, Habibi, the OilChapter 13: The Sunshine Peddler's Parlor GameChapter 14: Saying Boo! to the BogeymanPart II: A TheocracyChapter 15: A Wall of MistrustChapter 16: Coca-Cola and KFC in TehranChapter 17: Desert Gardens, Imam Hussein, and the Eternal FlameChapter 18: King of Kings in Wine CountryChapter 19: Fear and Faith in ParadisePart III: Shadow and Light, an Arab SpringChapter 20: Morocco and the February 20th MovementChapter 21: The Jasmine RevolutionSelected Bibliography