[escenic_image id="55183240"] Middle Eastern film production is experiencing a renaissance. There has been a substantial growth in films produced in the Middle East, improved film quality, and…

[escenic_image id="55178366"]Flying in over the white-domed roofs of Muscat at night, I was already experiencing a gentle surge of pleasure at returning to one of the most attractive capitals in the…

[escenic_image id="55174182"] Brothers in Arms: The story of Al-Qaeda and the Arab jihadists Camille Tawil SAQI 2010 £14.99 In this condensed English translation of Camille Tawil’s original…

[escenic_image id="55165703"]Certain cities seem to conjure up a wealth of images at the mere mentioning of their names. Damascus, just like Paris and Venice, is such a place. Hardly any other place…

[escenic_image id="55163788"] Blood and Gifts World premiere at the National Theatre, London September 2010 to 14 November Blood and Gifts by American writer JT Rogers is an epic political…

[escenic_image id="55160856"]KABUL: The Pashtun warlord’s son arranged our audience in the plush living room of a villa thronged by petitioners and guarded by men dressed in army uniforms, armed with…

[escenic_image id="55160846"] Ethnicities and Global Multiculture: Pants for an octopus Jan Nederveen Pieterse Rowman and Littlefield Publshers, Inc. 2007 £16.10 Pieterse’s work is academic,…

[escenic_image id="55156060"]In markets like Khan El-Khalili in the old city of Cairo, or indeed in any other Arab souk, the shops, courtyards and the very clothing of the traders and their customers…

[escenic_image id="55144538"] Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East Bernard Lewis Oxford University Press 2010 £10.49 Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at…

[escenic_image id="55145238"]Consider the map: an object created to represent some aspect of the physical world, purporting to be objective but naturally reflecting the perspective of the mapmaker…