The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East Book

If journalistic chronicle is first draft of history, here's a clarion call of a book that distills more than thirty years of reporting into a veritable micro history of the contemporary Middle East which, despite standing at 1300+ pages, feels too short for the staggering war saga in a state of flux.

This one book taught me more about the forces that shaped - rather misshaped - the Middle East post World War Two than the cacophony of "security experts" keeping publishing industry in business for their shallow analyses designed to hide more than reveal.

Robert Fisk warns in this book about the descent into chaos sitting just round the corner as a consequence of illegal Western wars of the previous decade, whether fought directly or by proxy, and West's propping up of the most illiberal forces in the region.

A decade later everything has come true.