Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-12 months Rivalry That Unraveled Tradition, Faith, and Collective Reminiscence within the Center East

A New York Occasions Notable E-book of 2020

“[A] sweeping and authoritative historical past” (The New York Occasions E-book Evaluate), Black Wave is an unprecedented and bold examination of how the fashionable Center East unraveled and why it began with the pivotal yr of 1979.

Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves collectively historical past, geopolitics, and tradition to ship a gripping learn of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American coverage.

With vivid story-telling, intensive historic analysis and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths a few area she calls house. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, as soon as allies and twin pillars of US technique within the area, grew to become mortal enemies after 1979. She reveals how they used and distorted faith in a contest that went effectively past geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and inspiring sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the conflict for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa towards creator Salman Rushdie, the assassination of numerous intellectuals, the delivery of teams like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September eleventh terrorist assaults, and the rise of ISIS.

Ghattas introduces us to a riveting solid of characters whose lives have been upended by the geopolitical drama over 4 a long time: from the Pakistani tv anchor who defied her nation’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the best way to the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is each an intimate and sweeping historical past of the area and can considerably alter perceptions of the Center East.