Storm from the East: The Struggle Between the Arab World and the Christian West Audiobook

Quotes

• “Having covered the Middle East for three decades, Milton Viorst has the eye of the historian but the brevity of the reporter, and his concise book sweeps across the centuries to explaint he disparities between values and viewpoints of the Islamic East and Christian West. His chronicle helps to overcome the mutual sense of ‘different-ness’ that has sometimes been the only link between two worlds.”

  — Jimmy Carter

• “Mr. Viorst, a scholar and journalist with long experience of the Middle East, gives a succinct and lucid account of the centuries-old conflict between the Arab world and the Christian West. Over the past 100 years, he argues, the Arabs have grasped at various ideologies as a way of regaining control over their own destiny. His point is that nothing serves to bring out the Arab sense of asabiyya (group unity) better than a threat from outside.”

  — Economist

• “Viorst’s pocket-sized book takes on a big subject…[The] narrative moves smoothly from country to country and crisis to crisis, balancing well the unity of uruba (“Arabness”) and the diversity of many different Arab polities interacting with the intrusive outsider. Balance is also to be found in Viorst’s correction of exaggerated historical interpretations.”

  — Foreign Affairs

• “A fast-paced history of the conflict between Arabs and the Western world…[Storm from the East] is helpful to anyone seeking a highly readable overview of the events and issues that shape US engagement with the Arab world.”

  — Dallas Morning News

• “As he outlines centuries of tensions, narrator Paul Hecht gives his reading both a professor’s gravitas and a touch of drama, avoiding emotion and sticking to the facts yet keeping the account interesting at all times. Whether or not listeners agree with Viorst’s alternative approaches to the Mideast conflict, his book provides a good introduction to the history of the Arab world that is well delivered.”

  — AudioFile