Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East

For more than a century successive US and UK governments have sought to thwart nationalist, socialist and pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. Through the Cold War, the ‘War on Terror’ and the present era defined by the Islamic State, the Western powers have repeatedly manipulated the region’s most powerful actors to ensure the security of their own interests and, in doing so, have given rise to religious politics, sectarian war, bloody counter-revolutions and now one of the most brutal incarnations of Islamic extremism ever seen.

This is the utterly compelling, systematic dissection of Western interference in the Middle East. Christopher Davidson exposes the dark side of our foreign policy – dragging many disturbing facts out into the light for the first time. Provocative, alarming and unrelenting, Shadow Wars demands to be read – now.

Publishers’ websites: Oneworld / Simon and Schuster

Table of contents: available here

Public lectures/launches:

Cambridge Literary Festival – Public lecture

FT Weekend’s Oxford Literary Festival – Public lecture

Leiden University – Public lecture with audience Q&A on Shadow Wars (video available)

Daoud Family Lecture, Albion College Michigan – Public lecture

Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society – Public lecture / local media

British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) – Public lecture

Reviews and features:

Al-Akhbar – Review: Shadow Wars: a contemporary history of Western counter-revolutions (Arabic)

Political Issues – Review: Shadow Wars (Arabic)