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Kim Ghattas

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Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East Kindle Edition

by Kim Ghattas (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 1,751 ratings

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A New York Times Notable Book of 2020

“[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Waveis an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979.

Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy.

With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS.

Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.

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Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize * A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 * A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2020 * A Financial Times Best Political Book of 2020

“[A] sweeping and authoritative history.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“She serves up a wealth of human interest wrapped in ambiance and atmosphere. She paints riveting portraits of the protagonists… a superbly researched and subtly told story―current history at its best.” ―The Wall Street Journal

“[A] wonderfully readable account… Ghattas has an enviable gift for going beyond politics… Whatever happens next in this long-running, oppressive and dangerous Middle Eastern drama, Black Wave will be a vivid, indispensable guide to the story so far.” ―The Guardian

“A timely and welcome guide to the politics of a region…Well-researched and elegantly written.” ―The Financial Times

“Unlike narratives told from a Western point of view, this book doesn’t highlight terrorism or ISIS but instead seamlessly weaves history and personal narrative into a story that explains the gradual suppression of intellectualism and the creep of authoritarianism in the region…Illuminating, conversational, rich in details and like nothing else you’ve ever read about the Middle East, Black Wave will leave you with a new understanding of this diverse and troubled region.” ―BookPage

“The publication of this book, Black Wave, could not be better timed. In it, Kim Ghattas argues convincingly that the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979 was one of three events that year that profoundly shaped ― or rather misshaped ― the Middle East… a fascinating and winding but highly readable tale.” ―The Times (UK)

“[An] illuminating account of the origins of sectarian violence and the current political shape of the Muslim world… [a] fluid, fast-moving narrative...Essential for all who follow world events.” ―Kirkus Reviews, *starred review*

“Skillfully written and scrupulously researched, Black Wave is an essential book in understanding the origins of the modern conflicts in the Middle East.” ―Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower

"The framing of Black Wave is as important as the content. Kim Ghattas portrays the last four decades across the Middle East as a dark age, a world dimmed behind a curtain of violence, misogyny, and religious extremism. In exploring how this blackness came to be, she recalls a brighter past and predicts a better future. It's a powerful and important book." ―Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of the New America Foundation and former Director of Policy Planning at the Department of State

“Kim Ghattas is a superb writer and reporter, which makes Black Wave an accessible and very interesting account of the sectarian schism and regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia that has riven the Middle East for decades and is one of the most consequential contests threatening global security.” ―Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt

"An artful, gripping, timely, and humane account of the roots and consequences of the destructive rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia from one of the region's most insightful and incisive observers." ―Ambassador William J. Burns, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Deputy Secretary of State

“A well-researched and highly readable primer on the rivalry between Shias and Sunnis shaping today’s Middle East. Kim Ghattas masterfully traces the origins of sectarianism in the explosive rise of Islamic fundamentalism in 1979 and the destructive Saudi-Iranian rivalry that followed. Told through the experiences of those who lived and shaped sectarianism, Black Wave is both gripping and informative; a must read for anyone interested in understanding the forces shaping the Middle East today.” ―Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East politics at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and author of Shia Revival

“Clear-eyed and honest, perfectly researched and brilliantly written, a unique book that is about more than the Saudi-Iran rivalry as it illuminates how and why the region began to turn inward over the last 100 years―a must read for outsiders and people in the region.” ―Marwan Muasher, Vice President for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former minister of foreign affairs of Jordan

"Black Wave is a brilliant piece of work. Ghattas reveals how the competition between Tehran and Riyadh, instigated in 1979 by the Iranian revolution and the siege of Mecca―and intensified after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq―led to the instrumentalization of Islam to destroy cosmopolitanism, to force women to veil, and to mobilize sectarian extremists." ―Emma Sky, senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute and author of In a Time of Monsters

About the Author

Kim Ghattas is an Emmy-award winning journalist, analyst, and author with more than 20 years of experience covering the Middle East, international affairs, and US foreign policy for the BBC, the Financial Times and de Volkskrant. She is currently a contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine, a regular contributor to the Financial Times, and a 2023-2024 Inaugural Distinguished Fellow at Columbia University's Institute for Global Politics.

Ghattas is the author of The Secretary, the New York Times best-seller about US foreign policy and her travels around the world with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her second book Black Wave, about the Saudi-Iran rivalry, was named a New York Times notable book in 2020 and has since become a reference for universities and diplomats. Ghattas is currently writing her third book, which revisits Lebanon’s civil war as the origin story of the US-Iran clash in the Middle East.

As a leading voice on Middle Eastern affairs, Ghattas shares her expertise on risk and opportunities in regional and geopolitical trends with a variety of key players and institutions in the region and in the United States. She serves on the board of trustees of the American University of Beirut and was chair of the board of directors for the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism network from 2020 to 2023. She sits on the advisory council of the Atlas for Impunity. Ghattas is also a former nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2017–2022), a former public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2017) and a former Civitella Ranieri fellow (2019).

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07MMLTR7J
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Henry Holt and Co. (January 28, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 28, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4583 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 389 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #190,222 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7 in History of Saudi Arabia
- #10 in History of Syria
- #54 in Iran History

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Kim Ghattas

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Born and raised in Beirut during the civil war, I always wanted to be a journalist. I pursued that goal doggedly... and made it. I covered the Middle East from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon to Iraq and Syria for the BBC, the Financial Times and the dutch daily de Volkskrant. I then moved on and moved to the US in 2008 to be the BBC's State department correspondent, traveling the world with Condolezza Rice, then Hillary Clinton and finally John Kerry. I wrote about those travels and about American foreign policy in The Secretary, which became a NYT best seller. My latest book is a sweeping history of the Middle East since 1979, a fateful year that unleashed a bitter rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. I now live between Beirut and Washington DC. I love to cook when I'm home and I miss my dog, Laika, whenever I'm traveling.

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Sanjay

Fascinating history of the Middle East in great writing style

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2024

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The ripple effect of well intended and horribly informed decisions has been massive. This was a great read, the writing style is very compelling and the stories of are super informative. Kim's competence and expertise show throughout the book. Wish I could write as well as her. The people that caused so much unrest in the middle east are all out of office or dead. It's time the west stopped interfering in other countries.

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ConcernedCitizen

Heroes, Villains and Understanding

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2020

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I have to say that I am in awe of Kim Ghattas’ magnum opus, Black Wave. It is a book filled with heroes and villains.

I have studied MENA on and off for years both professionally and personally, although my focus has at times been pushed by career needs to other regions of the world. I heard the stories of an officemate who had returned from Iran with the advent of the revolution. I only found out about the seizure of the American Tehran embassy when I purchased back copies of Time magazine in the Peking Hotel gift shop upon my return to Beijing from a month in the hinterlands of China. I had found my shortwave radio useless. At the time, I had thought the assassination of Park Chung-hee was the more momentous occurrence I had missed!

I was subsequently posted in the KSA servicing Aramco for over two years in the early eighties while the Iran-Iraq war was raging, and subject to censorship most noticeable by the torn pages removing cleavage from printed media. I was inspired during that assignment to return to graduate school in Denver, and I believe it was in 1985 that I worked closely on a seminar project with a young man named Javad Zarif, defending the right of the U.S. to use force to defend its interests in a debate with the other two members of the class. (An avowed supporter of Khomeini, he of course asserted the same right of Iran to do the same.) As recently as 2016 I visited the “discovery” well of the extension of the Iranian Yadavaran oil field into Iraq and a mine-clearing operation for much of the Operation Ramadan battlefield. It was sobering to realize that an estimated 15% of the 180,000 troops involved were killed or wounded in a six-week bloodletting 34 years earlier.

So my life, work experience and interests have been intertwined with the events described by Ms. Ghattas. Even with my voracious appetite for written perspectives on MENA in languages accessible to me, however, I still view myself as naïve in the region. Ghattas has filled in many gaps in my knowledge with her expansive account. I found it very readable, although slow going as I frequently put it down to further research specific subtopics or individuals. It will be worth a re-read at some point, and of course is a good reference. She barely touches upon the oil politics, and most of what has transpired in Libya, for instance, is beyond the scope of the book. She dissects the culture(s) of the region and the malignant effects upon it of the book’s two major protagonists, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The veiling she describes darkens the lives of not just women but everyone caught in the maelstrom unleashed by the religious fundamentalists.

Anyone who wants to understand the cauldron that is the Middle East must read this book. Anyone who wants to understand the dangers of religious fundamentalism should read this book.

11 people found this helpful

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Ted

An engrossing read.

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2022

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This book tells the broad story of the past 40+ years of the Middle East starting from the premise that three significant events in 1979 have shaped the region's path: the Iranian Revolution, the siege of Mecca, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The story is told as a series of personal stories, relating the lives and fates of a number of important personalities from across the region with a narrative of how their thoughts and beliefs influenced and/or were impacted by the increasingly conservative Islamist narrative across the region. The author does a really good job of weaving it all together in a way in which the overlapping and cascading influences are laid out with clarity.

The author states at the outset that she wanted to understand "What happened to us?", in the context of understanding what were the events and influences that have resulted in the bitter Saudi-Iranian rivalry, the vicious wars in Syria and Yemen, the rise of ISIS, and a general trend towards increasingly conservative Islam in places like Egypt and Pakistan. She approached the question, as one would guess from its phrasing, from an empathetic perspective of the impacts of all of this on the ordinary citizens of the region. An engrossing read and highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the region.

5 people found this helpful

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Peter M. Beck

A Timely and Important Book

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2020

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This is a timely and critically important book on the deepening tragedy that is the Middle East. Lebanese journalist Kim Ghattas explains the region through the prism of the Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry. She brings these two rich civilizations (and their neighbors) to life by showing them through the eyes of colorful individuals challenging the status quo. Her focal point is 1979. The year opened with the Iran’s Islamic Revolution and closed with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In between, the House of Saud survived a fundamentalist coup attempt. These three events would unleash what Ghattas calls a “Black Wave” of Islamic fundamentalism and war.

Three lessons I took from “Black Wave”:
1.) Muslim reformers are fighting a losing battle with extremists.
2.) The Middle East is its own worst enemy (not Israel and/or the United States).
3.) U.S. involvement in the Middle East almost always makes things worse.

The three most interesting people Ghattas profiles:
1.) Quassem Suleimani, Iranian military leader assassinated by Trump last month
2.) Masih Alinejad, Iranian exile in the U.S. fighting forced veiling
3.) Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi journalist butchered by his government in 2018

Middle Eastern Leader Most Like Trump: Saddam Hussein -- Flamboyance + False Piety

Biggest Omission: No discussion of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. This was very much tied to the 1979 Revolution and defined Iran for me as a kid.

I visited Egypt and Palestine in the early 1990s, so I have been following the region for almost 30 years, but this was my first book. Consequently, there were a few chapters where I found myself swimming in a sea of names and unfamiliar Arabic/Persian terms. Fortunately, Ghattas rewards us neophytes with wonderful writing, characters, and insights.

I wish I could share the optimism Ghattas expresses in her Conclusion, but almost all of her heroes are either dead or in exile. Unfortunately, I cannot discern a pathway out of the darkness. I will be peppering my Iranian-American hiking buddies with questions on our next hike!

12 people found this helpful

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Luiza Ribeiro - Brazil.

Luiza

Reviewed in Brazil on March 8, 2024

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Middle East is a puzzle, it is rich, fantastic and everything is interconnected. I recommend this book. Cheers from southern Brazil.

Brian E. Johns

Excellent Overview

Reviewed in Canada on January 1, 2024

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This is an excellent overview of the turmoil and turbulence of the Middle East dating back to 1979. If you want to understand the area, this is the book to start with! Highly recommended.

Amazon Customer

Compelling, with much more to learn

Reviewed in India on March 18, 2024

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I must mention a couple other books that I read before 'Black Wave' (BW) which made it more accessible. 1) Rashid Khalidi's '100 years' war on Palestine...' and 2) more relevantly, a comprehensive history of the Middle East by Sydney Nettleton Fisher - my most in-depth understanding of Mid-East history even though it was last revised in 1967 (& covered the rise of islam, islamic kingdoms/caliphates, impact of euro imperialism, growth of republicanism, the religious right, coups, Israel etc). Thanks to this, I entered BW with some understanding of the background/political trajectory of the states covered in it.

Kim is not a historian but a reporter (stated upfront) and her writing reflects that. On the whole, BW is a compelling & illuminating read. Kim may not have intended some of my takeaways but here they are anyway - at one level, it reinforced my current understanding of the nexus between certain Arab rulers and the much maligned America/West (strange bedfellows and all that) in causing many of this region's problems - meaning it doesn't seem to have always been a West (alone) meddling in the Mid-East story. Caveat: I'm yet to read a proper Arab/Middle-East perspective (maybe Albert Hourani?) Yet, at another level, I went in expecting Kim's background to also call out the genuine tragedy of western interference exacerbating regional problems but there didn't seem to be too much censure in my opinion. Perhaps, this was not the intention. One thing Kim does want to counter is Western notions of Islam by establishing a divide between the large mass of open minded Mid East muslims and the fundamentalists who mislead them. Yet, this is the part where I'm not fully convinced. Not to paint all muslims as conservatives but from the vantage point of sitting in 2024 and hindsight etc, I feel that large masses of Muslims are indeed supportive of Sharia-based theocratic set up or Islamic democracy perhaps with state religion etc. (I understand that there will be a variety of views under this). The region's secular/liberal forces seem to have been far too inspired by the clinical west I think, ignoring or suppressing the natural religiosity of the common populace? Kim's language at this point seems too much in the old western liberal mould - "the nice guys are just like you folks and the face-veiling, sharia-touting ones are bad fundamentalists who the majority don't like". The gaining of power by religious right actors is presented as moments of deep societal shock and yet, the only people chosen to illustrate are those living and working in a slightly westernised/liberal elite world - TV presenters, actors, singers, writers etc.

Finally, as an Indian, I could not help notice the similarities between Hindutva and conservative Islamist thoughts - the religious right everywhere have pet peeves. For eg., the disdain for a liberal/secular worldview that is believed to be a total western import. (Though for some Hindutvadis, their dislike stems from the belief that it has done nothing for them and favoured only muslims/minorities at the expense of hindus/majority.)

Final takeaway - the book is definitely a great buy and highly informative, richly detailed. It has, like any good book, left me with many thoughts to grapple with - Islamophobia, rise of right/far-right ideologies all over, current state of secularism/liberalism discourse and its effectiveness in countering all of these pressures. It only pushes me to know more.

One person found this helpful

Gustav S.

Fantastisk

Reviewed in Sweden on February 13, 2024

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Läsvärd för alla som vill få bättre förståelse för regionen.

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Excellent! Objectively written with poise and eloquence. A must read for those interested in the region.

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