'Blistering' Sunday Times'Indispensable' Observer'Fascinating' The Times'Brilliant' Peter
Frankopan'Revelatory' Lindsey HilsumA timely and unprecedented examination of how the modern
Middle East unravelled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Shortlisted for the
Cundhill History Prize 2020'What happened to us?'For decades the question has haunted the Arab
and Muslim world heard across Iran and Syria Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and in the author's
home country of Lebanon. Was it always so? When did the extremism intolerance and bloodletting
of today displace the region's cultural promise and diversity?In Black Wave award-winning
journalist and author Kim Ghattas argues that the turning point in the modern history of the
Middle East can be located in the toxic confluence of three major events in 1979: the Iranian
revolution the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Before this year Saudi Arabia and Iran had been working allies and twin pillars of US strategy
in the region - but the radical legacy of these events made them mortal enemies unleashing a
process that transformed culture society religion and geopolitics across the region for
decades to come.Drawing on a sweeping cast of characters across seven countries over forty
years Ghattas demonstrates how this rivalry for religious and cultural supremacy has fed
intolerance suppressed cultural expression encouraged sectarian violence birthed groups like
Hezbollah and ISIS and ultimately upended the lives of millions. At once bold and intimate
Black Wave is a remarkable and engrossing story of the Middle East as it has never been told
before.
