***Top book of 2020***
“I started this project with the full awareness that the extremist partisans on either side of the Saudi-Iran divide would find fault with everything I wrote- or perhaps they would pick apart the sections that depict them and applaud passages about their nemeses. I did not write this book for them. I wrote it for peers and colleagues and a wider audience of readers who want to understand why events in the Middle East continue to reverberate around the world. I wrote it for those who believe the Arab and Muslim words are more than the unceasing headlines about terrorism, ISIS, or the IRGC. Perhaps above all I wrote it for those of my generation and younger in the region who are still asking, “What happened to us?” and who wonder why their parents didn’t, or couldn’t, do anything to stop the unraveling.”
-Kim Ghattas, Black Wave
The cultural and political changes in the Middle East were brought to life and breathed into each page beginning with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The claim for the book is that the pivotal year of 1979 generated much of the conflict that is seen currently; so, we must understand 1979 at every angle in order to comprehend the Middle East of today. Because 1979 is the foundation for shaping the premise of the book, Part 1 which is 4 chapters (or 23 % on a Kindle) heavily centers around the 1979 Revolution.
The thesis is extremely well supported with exceptional research throughout each chapter reaching up to the year 2019. The reader sees the geopolitics in each region surrounding events that eventually lead to world developments such as the Iran hostage crisis, the emergence of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., and the growth of ISIS. We often always ask, “Why?” and this book attempts to explain the why.
*This is an intense book because it is eclipsed with several assassinations, insurmountable deaths, and extreme suffering.* (There was not a lot about the Kurds. There was not much about Yemen until the end.)
There were quite a few names in the beginning that I was unfamiliar with. All of those involved and mentioned were important, but it took some adjusting on my part to remember who was who. Because of that, I would recommend reading this on a Kindle.
Key figures (not limited to) : Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Musa al-Sadr, Juhayman al-Otaybi, Ruhollah Khomeini, Zia-ul-Haq, Saddam Hussein, Bin Baz, Osama Bin Laden, George H.W. Bush, Sadegh Khalkhali, Jamal Khashoggi, Qassem Suleimani, Mohammed Morsi, Nuri al-Maliki, Rafiq Hariri, Hafez al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, Crown Prince Abdallah, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Moqtada al-Sadr, Mansour al-Mansour, Nasr Abu Zeid, Salman al-Audah, King Fahd, Safar al-Hawali, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy. Opinions are my own.
Read The Guardian’s review for Black Wave.
Click here to watch Trevor Noah’s interview with author Kim Ghattas.
Take a look at Kim Ghattas book tour dates