Customer Reviews

Political Violence and Stability in The States Of The Northern Persian Gulf (1999)

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The good news about the book is that it just gets over 100 pages thus you can finish it in a few hours. The first thing that struck me when starting to read this book was that it seamed like a report created for a government Agency that they decided to publish as a book. That is not all bad, it just makes for somewhat flat and dry reading. I really enjoyed the discussion on the current (as of 1999) political and economic issues of the Gulf States. With the current focus on this part of the world it is interesting to read about some of the underling factors to how and why they act the way they do.

The book was not the one source for your Middle East education, but it could be used as a primmer for Middle East reading. It gives the basic facts that many other sources scan over or skip. I especially liked the details on Iran, which proved to be very interesting. The authors made Iran look to be more of a threat then Iraq, with all the trouble they have caused during the 90's via Hezbollah. One hole in the document seams to me to be the complete lack of mention of Al Queda even though the test covers Non State sponsored security issues. I think they were mentioned all of tow times even though the attacks on Americans in Africa and Saudi Arabia were discussed a number of times. Overall the book is interesting but not the one and only book to read on the subject.