Blowback: Six Decades of Western Interference in the Middle East - Softcover

'With a forensic precision that is almost enjoyable to read, Luders sets out which Western interventions have caused which outbreaks of blood-filled chaos in the Arab-Islamic world... BLOWBACK makes the pattern of Western behaviour and the Middle East's often bewildering history astonishingly clear'
STUTTGART ZEITUNG

'Michael Luders is Germany's sharpest and most influential expert on the Middle East'
FALTER MAGAZINE

'A black book of Western policy in the Middle East that reads like a thriller'
NEUES DEUTSCHLAND --...

In August 1953, in a covert operation, the CIA and MI6 jointly overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, installing the Shah in his place. Michael Luders illuminates the dark chain of cause and effect that flowed from this conveniently forgotten 'original sin' of postwar Western interference, extending right up to the present day. Along the way he examines other ill-fated interventions, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya to Palestine, blowing apart the West's claim to the moral high ground and making a powerful case for a radical rethink.
Already a bestseller in Europe, BLOWBACK is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand a region that remains at the heart of today's violent and disordered world.