This is book is about the trials and tribulations of a superpower trying to operate in an unusually fractious part of the world. It started with a simple aim, which was to try to explain what was going on the Middle East to people who found the situation confusing (in the first instance, my daughter during the 2006 Lebanon war). I soon realized that the trouble with this simple aim was that the story had many distinct but intertwining strands, and that one—Iran, Iraq or Israel—could not be understood without reference to the others.

Then there was the problem of where to start. Sometimes it appeared in American discussions that history had begun on September 11, 2001, or possibly with the end of the Cold War. I sensed that to do the job properly I should go back to colonial times, but to make the project manageable I decided to open with the events of 1978-79. This was a momentous period, encompassing the Camp David summit and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the overthrow of the Shah in Iran and the seizure of diplomatic hostages, and the attempt to impose communism on Afghanistan culminating in the Soviet invasion.

This struck me as a critical transitional period, as the Nasserite, secular, pan-Arab movement (what I call the first radical wave) was rejected by Sadat and entered terminal decline, while Islamism (the second radical wave) began to make its mark. From these events, and their combined impact, can be traced the rise of Al Qaeda, the desperation of the Palestinians, the partnership and then confrontation with Saddam Hussein (who made himself Iraqi president in 1979) and almost continual tension with Iran. While I wanted to say something about the internal dynamics of the region, I felt it made sense to focus on American policy-making. In part, this was because this is my comfort zone and I would not want to pretend to be a Middle Eastern specialist, but also because one way or another, Middle Eastern issues have dominated American foreign policy over this period, particularly when it comes to the use of armed force.

I was well aware, especially as a non-American, of the political minefield I was entering. These are issues that excite strong feelings. The polarization of opinion is often reflected in books that are seen as being for or against Israel, sympathetic to the Iraq war or unremittingly hostile, cynical or forgiving about official motives. Single, simplistic explanations are offered, pointing to the influence of the “Israel Lobby” or Big Oil or neo-conservatives. With such dramatic material it would be impossible to find a bland and inoffensive middle course, but I have sought to respect the evidence, interpret it with care, avoid polemics and try to do justice to this fascinating though frequently tragic story.

The conservative NY Sun has published two reviews of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. The first review, published at the end of May, was glowing:

You don't have to agree with everything in this monumental account of politics in the 1960s and 1970s to find Rick Perlstein's"Nixonland" (Scribner, 896 pages, $37.50) interesting and even engrossing. The book is a masterful retelling of the turbulent period between the crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the equally stunning loss by George McGovern to Richard Nixon in 1972.

Then came this from the pen of Conrad Black, the disgraced businessman who moonlights as a historian:

Mr. Perlstein engages in the usual psychological liberties of Nixon-haters, denigrates his hard-scrabble, terribly earnest Quaker youth, endlessly engages in unsubstantiated mind-reading, and gives Nixon no credit for anything but a manic, corrupt, rat cunning.

Mr. Black, writing from his prison cell, was an investor in the Sun.

Air Force History and Museums Program officials annually recognize excellence in history programs, historical publications and heritage projects, and award commendable work by military and civilian personnel for outstanding performance or achievement, both as individuals or teams.

Two Excellence in Wing History Program Awards recognize historians who have provided superior historical services to their units and have submitted an outstanding periodic history during the past calendar year.

The winner of the Allan S. Major Award is Todd Schroeder. He is from the 47th Fighter Wing History Office at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas.

The Allan S. Major Award recognizes a historian assigned to a single-person history office at the wing or independent group level. Airman 1st Class Allan S. Major was the first enlisted historian killed in the line of duty. He perished in a KC-135 crash at Wake Island on Sept. 24, 1968, while returning to Pease AFB, N. H., from deployed duty at Andersen AFB, Guam.

The John R. Burton Award winners are Dr. John R. Glover and Jeffery S. Michalke. They are with the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The John R. Burton Award recognizes historians assigned to a wing multi-person history office. Chief Master Sgt. John R. Burton was the first senior enlisted historian for Air Force Systems Command. The Air Force historian later selected him as the first assistant for enlisted program management, responsible for managing enlisted Air Force historians worldwide. Chief Burton held this position from early 1983 through the fall of 1987.

He played a key role in integrating unit historians into Air Force contingency plans. When Operation Desert Shield commenced, Chief Burton was the immediate choice to establish and manage the Central Air Forces history office in Saudi Arabia. He was the only enlisted person to serve as a major command historian. Under his leadership, deployed historians quickly set the standard for collecting and reporting wartime historical data during Operation Desert Storm. This data provided the foundation for post-war studies and reports compiled at all command echelons.

The Robert F. Futrell Award recognizes those who have produced an outstanding publication during the past calendar year.

The winners of the Futrell Award are: Dr. William Head, Warner Robins Air Logistics Center History Office, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., for Shadow and Stinger: Developing the AC-119G/K Gunships in the Vietnam War; Ellery W. Allwork and Kathryn Wilcoxsen, Air Mobility Command History Office, Scott AFB, Ill., for Operation Deep Freeze: 50 Years of U.S. Air Force Airlift in Antarctica; and Michael Dugre, Air Combat Command History Office, Langley AFB, Va., and Yancy Mailes and Master Sgt. Clifford M. Sibley, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, for The first and Last: America's 911 Wing at War.

Following a brief stint as an Army Air Forces history officer during World War II, Dr. Robert F. Futrell served as an Air Force civilian historian, retiring in 1974 as senior historian at the Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center at Maxwell AFB, Ala., after a 31-year career.

The Air Force Heritage Award winners are: David Byrd, Fort Meade, Md., for Cold War Heritage Display; The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, for Down in the Weeds: Ranch Hand; and The Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute, Maxwell AFB-Gunter Annex, Ala., for Convoy Truck Display.

"It is with great honor that we recognize the hard work, dedication and commitment to excellence these individuals have shown through their outstanding work," said C.R. Anderegg, the Air Force History and Museums Programs and Policies director at the Pentagon. "I extend my heart-felt thanks to all the historians and curators for their hard work and my warmest congratulations to the award winners."

Begin with the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s. Move forward to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the early Republic, and from there to the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Turn then to the arbitrary political arrests of the First and Second World Wars, the many abuses of the cold war McCarthy era, and from there to the civil liberties climate in our own time. Find your conscience and hold it close.

One of the pivotal connective links from earliest repressive efforts to the present time is the pushback each received from opponents at the time: a phenomenon that the late scholar and United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called the “self-corrective” forces at work within American society.

These forces make difficult any and all efforts to create a thoroughly repressive climate of opinion, even during wars and pre- or post-war red scares. You will not find similar self-corrective societies in great numbers in our time. There are precious few and none as obsessively self-corrective as ours.

Jane Acomb Leake, professor emerita of medieval history at UC's Raymond Walters College, died June 6 at the Alois Alzheimer's Center here.

She was 79.

"She was one of the most intelligent people I've ever known," her husband, Lowell, said. "She loved to teach."

Dr. Leake started out as an instructor of historic literature at UC's College of Design, Art and Architecture in 1959, her husband said. "She taught there for about three years. It was one of her favorite teaching assignments. The students were very, very bright."

From there, she became an associate professor of history at Raymond Walters and eventually became a full professor.

In 1967, her work, "The Geats of Beowulf: A Study in the Geographical Mythology of the Middle Ages," was published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

She wasn't just a fine scholar and teacher, her husband said. "She was a vivacious person - full of fun and enjoyed life," he said. She was also active in community affairs and loved living in Greater Cincinnati.

Through her membership with the UC chapter of the American Association of University Professors, Dr. Leake worked for equal opportunity for women in academia.

CALLAO, PERU

'Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago."

Simple enough, right? But not for Demetrio Tupac Yupanqui.

Instead, he regales visitors to his home in this gritty port city on Lima's edge with his Quechua version of the opening words of "Don Quixote": "Huh k'iti, la Mancha llahta suyupin, mana yuyarina markapin, yaqa kay watakuna kama, huh axllasqa wiraqucha."

Tupac Yupanqui, theologian, professor, adviser to presidents and, now, at the sunset of his long life, a groundbreaking translator of Cervantes, greets the perplexed reactions to these words with a wide smile.

"When people communicate in Quechua, they glow," said Tupac Yupanqui, who at 85 still appears before his pupils each day in a tailored dark suit. "It is a language that persists five centuries after the conquistadors arrived. We cannot let it die."

Once the lingua franca of the Inca empire, Quechua has long been in decline. But thanks to Tupac Yupanqui and others, Quechua, which remains the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas, is winning some new respect.

CNN spoke to Rykwert about how buildings and spaces act as a metaphor for society, our transition from citizens to customers and the challenges facing the built environment in the 21st century.

CNN: What do you mean exactly when you talk about the city and its buildings as a metaphor for society?

Joseph Rykwert: One of the obvious things is that when a new big building goes up people immediately find nicknames for it -- the "gherkin" [30 St Mary Axe] and the "testicle" [City Hall, London]. And I'm told the big new building in Beijing [CCTV Tower] by Rem Koolhaas is known as a "crotch". So they are usually given nicknames of sexual connotations. And they're usually not favorable nicknames because people don't like anything new. One of the general considerations about new buildings is that people tend to say that anything new is a monstrosity. And then after a while they either accept them or they go on thinking that they are monstrosities. Reactions vary. This depends to some extent on the quality of the building.

But otherwise, there is that famous passage of Henry James looking at the skyline of New York saying; whatever it means, it means business. So that's certainly what the New York skyline is about -- the enormous energy of American business rising in the way that Chicago did and New York did.

But all that is now over and we no longer think of it in those terms at all. Skyscrapers no longer have that kind of power. Partly because there are so many of them and partly because we no longer believe wholeheartedly in the enormous energy of capital and business as a redeeming feature of our lives. I think we've grown a bit cynical about it, haven't we?

CNN: What is your assessment of the increasing prevalence of barriers and CCTV in public buildings and spaces today?

JR: I think it is a tragic development. I think it cuts a swathe out of public space. In a way, I think the American Embassy in London led the way but other institutions have followed. It has blocked off a bit of London.

Whether embassies are entitled to do that or not, I don't know. But it certainly presents itself as a fort or a castle. That's the metaphor that occurs to one going past it.

In a way, it suggests foreign domination in a way that embassies never did before. There are other embassies on the square and they are very modest by comparison.

The growth of security areas is something which is a reflection on our society. We are a frightened lot in a way that the people of the 1920's and 1930's were not.

This is not a British phenomenon, it is worldwide. You find gated communities in India and China perhaps even more than you do in England. Partly, of course, it's a feature of the unadvertised growing inequality in our society. But obviously it is a symptom of fear. It's also paralleled by the growth of the great commercial shopping centers which also cut up public space.

Behavior has to be conformable, conforming to. Everybody has seen The Truman Papers. I think that kind of conformity is something that is imposed by turning the citizen into a customer....

One week into the general election, the polls show a dead heat. But many presidential scholars doubt that John McCain stands much of a chance, if any.

Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932.

“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.

“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.

“It is one of the worst political environments for the party in power since World War II,” added Alan Abramowitz, a professor of public opinion and the presidency at Emory University. His forecasting model — which factors in gross domestic product, whether a party has completed two terms in the White House and net presidential approval rating — gives McCain about the same odds as Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Carter in 1980 — both of whom were handily defeated in elections that returned the presidency to the previously out-of-power party. “It would be a pretty stunning upset if McCain won,” Abramowitz said....

Historians divide history into epochs. The Gilded Age and the Great Depression, for example, are familiar to most Americans. Our current epoch, however--a period that has seen soaring grand fortunes for a new American superrich and a fading American Dream for nearly everyone else--lacks a label. That's why The Nation is joining the Institute for Policy Studies in a new contest. We invite you to help us Name Our Epoch! Send an e-mail toNameOurEpoch@ips-dc.org with your suggested label for our excruciatingly unequal times. We need your entry by July 4. Our all-star progressive panel of judges--historian Howard Zinn, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and novelist Walter Mosley--will determine a winner.

A six-and-a-half year prison term for mail fraud and obstruction of justice is not keeping Conrad Black, a Canadian born media mogul and member of the British House of Lords, away from writing.

Besides his now infamous role at Hollinger International Inc., Black is also the author of biographies on Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. With prison on his itinerary, the fate of Black’s writing was in question.

According to The Canadian Press, the Florida low-security prison, where Black currently resides, does not have access to computers. To continue his writing while in prison, Black will be forced to take up the old fashion style of pen and paper, though it might not be a stretch for him as he reportedly wrote his memoir in such a way.

Black began his term at on March 3, 2008 and has since published four articles in The New York Sun on topics about Iraq, Europe, and France. In an article that appeared on June 9, 2008 in The New York Sun, Black explored the 40th anniversary of a student uprising in France that led to an important Charles de Gaulle address.

"The year 1968 was a tempestuous time of upheavals, invasion (Czechoslovakia), and assassinations (Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy). The collapse of constitutional government in France would have been a disaster for the West. It is not the mindless posturings of the misplaced youth of the superannuated left that should be celebrated now, but the salvation of France as a functioning democracy and the phoenix-like survival of the figure who was then the West's greatest statesman."

The Sun, founded in 2002 with support from investors like Black, has remained in alliances with its investor and friend, allowing him to write articles on a variety of topics.

Richard David Greenfield, historian: born London 10 January 1931; Professor of History, University of Asmara, Eritrea 1999-2007 (Emeritus); Senior Consultant, Eritrean Research and Documentation Centre 1999-2008; died Oxford 1 June 2008.

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Richard Greenfield had an unparalleled grasp of the history and politics of the countries of the Horn of Africa, and will perhaps be best remembered for his 1965 book Ethiopia: a new political history.

From 1999 until 2007 he was Professor of History at the University of Asmara in Eritrea, supervising with painstaking thoroughness many history, law and political science students' research theses. When he joined the university, he also became senior consultant for the Eritrean Research and Documentation Centre in the city, and there deposited his comprehensive personal library and extraordinarily rich archives, now known as the Greenfield Collection. Among his treasures were first editions of James Bruce's Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790) and James Theodore Bent's The Sacred City of the Ethiopians: being a record of travel and research in Abyssinia in 1893. He proved an inspiration to the young archivists and worked closely with the director of the documentation centre, Dr Azeb Tewolde.

Greenfield had first visited Eritrea in 1958 shortly after he had joined the staff of the University of Addis Ababa. A supposedly autonomous state, Eritrea was already on the way to an illegal annexation by Ethiopia. Later Greenfield was appointed dean of students and was in Addis during the attempted coup against Emperor Haile Selassie in 1960. He sheltered a number of student activists from the military when the coup was repressed and thus saved their lives. He stayed in Ethiopia until 1962 although subject to periods of harassment and house arrest.

The first appearance in Israel by Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer since the publication of their controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, impressed a largely student audience at the Hebrew University, but left some faculty members wondering about their honesty.

A threatened boycott failed to have any effect, and the talk passed off with nothing more dramatic than some lively debate and repeated declarations from the pair that they are neither anti-Semitic nor Israel-haters.

Their presentation, “Is the ‘Israel lobby’ good for Israel?,” attracted 200 people. Mr. Walt told The Chronicle that they were visiting Israel at the invitation of the veteran left-wing campaigner Uri Avnery and decided to add a university appearance to their schedule.

Mr. Walt is a professor of international relations at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Mr. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

Their work has been criticized as anti-Jewish and intellectually dishonest, charges that led some to call for the lecture to be canceled.