Review
Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Director, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program, Harvard University
An eloquent and sensitive portrayal of the Middle East's lesser known religions, whose existence is severely threatened by the strident nationalisms and proxy wars that are currently tearing apart a region once renowned for its tolerance. Gerard Russell gives a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, those whose traditionshanded down through many centuriesare being disregarded and indeed obliterated in a blaze of violence and hatred. He lifts the veil of ignorance' and reveals just what is at stakeboth in the Middle East and around the world. Through extensive and meticulous research, and encompassing years of travel to distant places to meet in person those whose lives have been turned upside down, Mr. Russell's passionate message touches the heart and reminds us of the value and beauty of tolerance.”
Tom Holland, author of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World
It is unbearably poignant that a book so learned and so beautifully written should have been written about the religious minorities of the Middle East just as many of them seem on the verge of extinction. Rarely have I read anything so timely.”
Independent Best Books of 2014 (Religion)
Economist's Intelligent Life Four Books of the Moment
Economist
A wonderfully intriguing book
[written with] erudition, sensitivity, humour and aplomb: a remarkable achievement.”
Economist's Intelligent Life
He wears his research lightly, combining fairy-tale detailYazidis sacrifice bulls and revere a peacock rebel angelwith warning and elegy.”
Wall Street Journal
It is difficult to imagine a more timely book than Gerard Russell's Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East. Equal parts travelogue and history, Mr. Russell's meticulously researched book takes readers into some of the region's least-known minority communities: the Mandaeans of Iraq, the Copts of Egypt, the Zoroastrians, the Samaritans, and, yes, the Yazidis.”
New York Times Book Review
[A] lively new book.... Russell, a former British and United Nations diplomat, writes movingly of his encounters with the adherents of these faiths.... As religious identities become more pronounced, Russell's work reminds us that the Middle East was not always convulsed by sectarian bloodletting.”
Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith, author of The End of Iraq
This beautifully written account of the Middle East's unknown and vanishing religions could not be more timely. Just as the world turns its attention to the extremist attacks on Iraq's Yazidis, Gerard Russell tells us who they are. Russell's bookbased on his travels among the Yazidis, Mandaeans (followers of John the Baptist), Zoroastrians, Samaritans, Copts, and Druzeis the story of people and faiths that have links back to the dawn of civilization. It is travel writing in the tradition of Rebecca West and Robert Kaplan, but possibly better.”
Carne Ross, former diplomat and founder of Independent Diplomat
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms has the beauty, wisdom, and tragedy of the best elegies. Gerard Russell's book is both timely and necessary, a scholarly and personal observation of religions that are the heritage of all mankind, yet are rapidly disappearing. It is part travelogue and part history of some of the original wellsprings of human culture, both ancient and modern, but also a meditation upon rites and beliefs that are mysterious and fascinating but grievously threatened. Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms is essential reading for everyone who cares about the Middle East, religion, and indeed our common history.”
Christian Century
Gerard Russell has written a well-crafted and readable book in which an acute observer tells an intriguing and significant story, drawing heavily on personal observation
Russell has a sharp eye for telling details, for surprising quirks of speech or dress
Russell makes an excellent travel companion and guide. Even if you know the history of the region, you will learn much
. The book is above all a testimony to how minority movements can survive almost indefinitely under exceedingly harsh and unpromising conditions, and the degree to which they maintain their integrity under those circumstances. It is difficult to read such accounts without a sense of awe at human persistence and ingenuity.”
Books and Culture
[A] magnificent travelogue of the Middle East's disappearing religions
The stories he tells are history and religion, but he tells them through the voices of people he befriends; these are tales of dusty bus rides, generous hospitality, slow sunset conversations. He tells history, in other words, at ground speed, the pace of a pilgrim, which is not only part of the charm and grace of the book but also what makes it relatable and engaging
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms is
a beautiful and very human telling of stories we know in the merest part, stories that disturb and decenter the easy narrow-mindedness of literalists believers and dogmatic atheists alike.”
Independent (UK)
A fascinating survey of the half-forgotten little faiths of the region.”
The Times (UK)
This is a literary quest, but one tempered by shrewd political judgment. And it is a book full of gems
. At its heart, Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms is about introducing nuance into a cartoonish western world view that sees the Middle East as Shia versus Sunni, Palestinians versus Jews, Muslims against Christians. This sometimes charming, always thoughtful, book is a reminder that Islamic states were not always as barbarous as the Islamic State gangsters who are currently usurping the
Booklist
Russell, a former British and UN diplomat who lived in the Middle East for 15 years, proves an excellent tour guide as he introduces the remnants of these near-extinct groups
a fascinating read, especially when it becomes clear that, with a few twists of history, some of these religions would have been at the top, not the bottom.”
Library Journal
A fascinating and gracefully written study of minority religions, recommended for its appreciate of cultural richness and variety.”
Kirkus
Russell penetrates the secret workings of these religions tolerated throughout the ages by Christian or Islamic rulers, even pursuing his research to immigrant churches in Dearborn, Michigan. A pertinent work of history and journalism. As armies again march in the Middle East, these communities are at new risk.”
Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad
As the al-Qaeda splinter group, ISIS, storms across Syria and Iraq and attempts to destroy the Yazidi religious sect, now comes Gerard Russell, an erudite, polylingual former British diplomat, who documents the fates of the ancient religions of the Middle East, many of which are on the brink of extinction. Russell writes beautifully and reports deeply, and his account of these disappearing religions' will be an enduring anthropology of largely-hidden worlds that may disappear within our own lifetimes.”
Emma Sky, Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University
Gerard Russell's beautifully written book provides wonderful insights into the Middle East and the beauty of the different cultures that have flourished there for centuries. It is a welcome respite from the usual portrayal of violence in the region, and at the same time a wake-up call of what will be lost if a perverse form of violent extremism is allowed to prevail. At a time when religion is so often seen as a cause of war, this book shows how lives can be enriched by maintaining rituals and beliefs through generations.”
James Traub, columnist for foreignpolicy.com
Gerard Russell has written a wonderfully beguiling Baedaker to the vastness of the Middle East, where ancient religions have survived like the remnants of an all-but-extinct species. At a time when the region is boiling with sectarian violence, Russell reminds us that the Arab world, and Islam itself, has given shelter to ancient faiths when Christian Europe would not. Heirs To Forgotten Kingdoms is a loving tribute to the ancient and the strange, to spliced genealogies, and to the heroic defense of heterodoxy in an increasingly intolerant world.”
Guardian (UK)
A fascinating record of the end of tolerance
There have been good studies of individual parts of the process, but Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, Russell's brilliant and constantly engaging account of his travels through the disappearing religions of the Middle East, is the first attempt to pull all these diverse threads together
where Russell excels is in his ability to link the past and the present, and to draw from a well of historical and theological scholarship, and his deep erudition in Arabic and Farsi, to show why we must take note of these unlikely survivors from the ancient Middle East, why their emigration matters and how this is likely to affect contemporary politics
It's a long time since I read a travel book that taught or illuminated so much, but its importance is greater than that. Tragically, this book puts on record for the last possible time a once-plural world that is on the verge of disappearing for ever.”
William Dalrymple, The Guardian
It's a very long time since I read a travel book that has taught or illuminated so much as Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms,' Gerald Russell's brilliant and constantly engaging account of his travels through the disappearing minority religions of the Middle East.”
Washington Post
Russell displays a clear enthusiasm for his project and an endearing affection for his subjects
One hopes that the attention this book draws to ancient customs and beliefs will contribute to their preservation.”
New York Review of Books
[A] remarkable book
the great virtue of Russell's book is its courageous spirit of sympathy for an immense range of human experience
an urgently needed corrective in our age of deepening religious divisions.”
Financial Times
A fascinating survey of threatened and vanishing minority religions across the broader Middle East, written in an even tone sprinkled with wonder.”
The National
Gerard Russell, a former British diplomat who has served throughout the region, is a worthy successor to the great British Arabists of the past, passionately interested in the area and its ¬people...Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms is informative, thought-provoking and timely. It provides fascinating insights into the mosaic of religious beliefs that can be found throughout the Middle East, and also into how that diversity emerged and survived. Eschewing discussion of modern politics, it presents a challenge, nevertheless, to those who bear the responsibility for how this diversity can be preserved in the years to come. All humanity will be the loser should it disappear.”
Shelf Awareness for Readers
An important and engaging book for anyone interested in the Middle East.”
Publishers Weekly, starred review
[A] fascinating account of minority religions in Middle East
By tying modern practice to historical context, Russell provides a valuable briefing on the ancient and medieval history of the region. He also muses on the immediate future of each community, particularly with respect to political instability and immigration, and his cheerfully personal tone makes all this information lively. This important and enjoyable glimpse into little-considered religious dynamics of the Middle East deserves to be widely read and distributed.”
New York Times Book Review By the Book
[A] highly topical study of Middle Eastern anomalies which is teaching me a lot, and should be read by all Western policy makers those who do read.”
Literary Review (UK)
Part vivid odyssey, part lucid history
. Gerard Russell's timely and humane depiction of [these cultures] is a compelling read.”
Bookforum
A nation-hopping guidebook to the theology and customs of believers who can't fully inhabit the imaginations of many Western readers without a proper introduction
Engaging and informative
Russell introduces a cast of characters who, even when offering cagey responses to his earnest questions, humanize groups that news reports tend to treat as extras on the world stage.”
About the Author
Gerard Russell is a Senior Associate at the Foreign Policy Centre in London. He was a diplomat for 15 years, serving in the British Foreign Office and the United Nations, and speaks fluent Arabic and Dari. Russell is a member of the Order of the British Empire and lives in London.
