Bøger af Dilip Hiro

The United States' victory in the Cold War in 1991 led to triumphalist claims that humanity had reached the end of history," and that Washington would enjoy everlasting supremacy. Some years later, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called America the indispensable nation." And a senior aide to President George W. Bush crowed: We are an empire now." But by invading Iraq, Bush irreparably undermined U.S. credibility worldwide. And by curtailing Americans' civil liberties in the name of waging an endless war on terror," and resorting to torture in the prisons of occupied Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, his administration,as well as America,lost its claim to a moral high ground. Moreover, the 2008-2009 global fiscal meltdown, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis on Wall Street, exposed a stark fact: The heavily indebted America had ceased to be the financial behemoth it had been since World War II. After Empire sketches the contours of a complex world system emerging during the late imperial phase of the U.S. It examines, critically, the events that prepared the ground for the world to move from the tutelage of the sole superpower, America, to a multipolar, post-imperial global order. Refreshingly, it does so from a distinctly non-Western perspective. Unlike other scholars, Dilip Hiro,one of the world's leading experts on the geopolitics of hydrocarbons as well as the Middle East and South and Central Asia,does not offer a comforting thesis that the U.S. is quite capable of accommodating the rising world powers like China, Russia, India, and the European Union while retaining its dominant position at the table. Neither does he frame global politics in a Manichean way,America versus China the West against Asia. The world, he suggests, is set to revisit the pre-World War I Europe, where rulers frequently changed allies and adversaries to achieve the shared aim of keeping the continent free of an overarching power,to date, a privilege enjoyed globally by America. With more than two trillion dollars in its foreign reserves, China's state-owned corporations are busily buying up companies worldwide. By surpassing Saudi Arabia in its oil output, Russia, the number one producer of natural gas, is now the world's foremost producer of hydrocarbons. Its nuclear arsenal is on par with America's. Elsewhere the hydrocarbon-rich nations of Venezuela and Iran are challenging the Washington-dominated status quo respectively in South America and the Middle East. Already, the 27-nation European Union of nearly 500 million has surpassed America as the globe's largest trading entity, and the euro has emerged as a strong rival to the U.S. dollar as a dominant reserve currency. After Empire is realistic and nuanced in its assessment of global politics. Shorn of an ideological bias or a soft corner for America, it abounds in unsettling and stimulating insights on politics, history, hard and soft power, political economy and democracy.

Traces the history of the eight-year-long war between the two Middle Eastern neighbors, describes the results of the war, and assesses its impact on the region.

Nearly four decades ago, Dilip Hiros Inside India Today, banned by Indira Gandhis government, was acclaimed by The Guardian as simply the best book on India. Now Hiro returns to his native country to chronicle the impact of the dramatic economic liberalization that began in 1991, which ushered India into the era of globalization.Hiro describes how India has been reengineered not only in its economy but also in its politics and cultural mores. Places such as Gurgaon and Noida on the outskirts of Delhi have been transformed from nondescript towns into forests of expensive high-rise residential and commercial properties. Businessmen in Bollywood movies, once portrayed as villains, are now often the heroes. The marginal, right-wing Hindu militants of the past now rule the nominally secular nation, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their avatar, one whose electoral victory was funded by big business.Hiro provides a gripping account of the role played by Indians who have settled in the United States and Britain since 1991 in boosting Indias GDP. But he also highlights the negatives: the exponential growth in sleaze in the public and private sectors, the impoverishment of farmers, and the rise in urban slums. A masterful panorama, The Age of Aspiration covers the whole social spectrum of Indians at home and abroad.

This is the most up-to-date book your students can find on the past, present, and future of the countries of the Middle East. A statistical profile at the start of each country's chapter gives students detailed, current information in an easy-to-use at-a-glance format. Author, playwright, and journalist, Dilip Hiro applies his expertise and unique insights to explaining the struggles, conflicts, and alliances of this troubled area. From the days of Great Britain's dominance after World War I to the Gulf War and the emergence of the Palestinian National Authority in the 1990s, Hiro successfully weaves the varied threads of history, politics, and economics into a narrative that never lacks for high-interest drama.

This hard-hitting and timely book explores the roots of militant Islam in South Asia and how it has grown to become a source of profound global alarm. By meticulously tracking the rise of the jihadist movement from its initial violence in Afghanistan in 1980 to the present day, Dilip Hiro challenges conventional narratives of the roles of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Soviet Union, the United States, and India. He warns that the Line of Control in Kashmir, where jihadists seek to incite war between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, is today the most dangerous border in the world.Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of sources including newly released Kremlin archives and classified U.S. Embassy documents published by WikiLeaks, the author compiles the first complete and accurate history of Islamist terrorism in South Asia. He chronicles historic links between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India and their varying degrees of destabilization at the hands of the jihadists. He also sheds unprecedented light on the close military and intelligence links that have developed between India and Israel. Finally, he outlines the ambitions of Pakistani, Afghan, and Al Qaida jihadists to establish an "e;apocalyptic realm"e; covering South, Central, and Western Asia. Compact, comprehensive, and fast paced, this book lays bare the causes of today's escalating terrorist threat, sets the historical record straight, and offers fresh strategies for defeating jihadist extremism.

A sweeping account of the relationship between Pakistan and India that traces the two countries' contentious history from long simmering tensions between Hindus and Muslims, to the conflict over Kashmir, to the possibility for a present day detente.

This is an essential overview to the conflicts in the Gulf, and should be read by anyone with an interest in the region, its politics and its interactions with the US and UN.

Provides a brief history of Islam both as religion and a socio-political ideology. Outlines the Islamist movements that have thrived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan and their relationship with America.