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And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East Hardcover – February 9, 2016
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“Gripping reading...an astute, fast-paced overview...[Engel] gives us sharp, unnerving snapshots.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Based on two decades of reporting, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent’s riveting story of the Middle East revolutions, the Arab Spring, war, and terrorism seen up-close—sometimes dangerously so.
When he was just twenty-three, a recent graduate of Stanford University, Richard Engel set off to Cairo with $2,000 and dreams of being a reporter. Shortly thereafter he was working freelance for Arab news sources and got a call that a busload of Italian tourists were massacred at a Cairo museum. This is his first view of the carnage these years would pile on. Over two decades Engel has been under fire, blown out of hotel beds, taken hostage. He has watched Mubarak and Morsi in Egypt arrested and condemned, reported from Jerusalem, been through the Lebanese war, covered the whole shooting match in Iraq, interviewed Libyan rebels who toppled Gaddafi, reported from Syria as Al-Qaeda stepped in, was kidnapped in the Syrian crosscurrents of fighting. He goes into Afghanistan with the Taliban and to Iraq with ISIS. In the page-turning And Then All Hell Broke Loose, he shares his adventure tale.
Engel takes chances, though not reckless ones, keeps a level head and a sense of humor, as well as a grasp of history in the making. Reporting as NBC’s Chief-Foreign Correspondent, he reveals his unparalleled access to the major figures, the gritty soldiers, and the helpless victims in the Middle East during this watershed time. We can experience the unforgettable suffering and despair of the local populations. Engel’s vivid description is intimate and personal. Importantly, it is a succinct and authoritative account of the ever-changing currents in that dangerous land.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster
- Publication dateFebruary 9, 2016
- Dimensions8.66 x 5.91 x 0.98 inches
- ISBN-101451635117
- ISBN-13978-1451635119
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“The author's quick-paced account is a thrilling adventure story laced with historical context to help readers make sense of the longstanding sectarian hatreds that propel the violence in Iraq and elsewhere. . . . No one can argue that Engel, now NBC's chief foreign correspondent, missed the boat when he decided to head to the Middle East to cover what he believed would be his generation's biggest news venue. ‘My ambition was to ride the train of history, and the train came rumbling right at me.’” ― Associated Press
“Brisk . . . Engel, the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, has written an absorbing book about his eventful career. . . . At heart, [the book] is a nerve-racking autobiography by a journalist on the front lines, covering wars and terrorism in Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Iraq and Syria. On another level, it’s an informative portrait of a troubled region, one that has been unduly influenced by charlatans and madmen and poorly served by two consecutive American presidents, Engel argues.” ― The Kansas City Star
“[Engel’s] fascinating new book . . . chronicles his often dangerous journey in a complicated neck of the woods. Engel was always restless, driven and filled with wanderlust. . . . Engel has proved to be a fearless reporter. He has covered every major crisis with incredible moxie. . . . Engel spends a large portion of his narrative deftly explaining to us these sectarian differences and their centuries-old history.” ― The Jerusalem Post
“Engel… has been in the Middle East, getting a viscerally up-close perspective on these world-historic events. And as this fast-paced and engaging new book makes clear, even if it hasn’t always been easy, Engels’ time in the Middle East has always been important.” ― Salon.com
“Engel offers an adventurous overview of the past, present and future of the area.” ― Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A deft personal account . . . a lucid, alarming overview of where the Middle East has been and where it is heading.” ― Kirkus Reviews
“As a print and broadcast journalist with his own boots on the ground in the Middle East for more than 20 years, Engel has seen it all . . . Now Engel takes a long view . . . His grasp of Middle East history is encyclopedic, yet Engel distills the major tenets of geopolitical and religious conflict into comprehensible and comprehensive terms. . . . Clear, candid, and concise, Engel’s overview of the ongoing battleground should be required reading for anyone desiring a thorough and informed portrait of what the past has created and what the future holds for the Middle East and the world at large.” ― Booklist, starred review
“Engel — who is NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent — offers a brisk, concise, often-hair-raising saga beginning with his early, fondly remembered years in Cairo, to the increasing bloodshed and intransigent policies, wars and terrorism of Jerusalem, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan . . . The book often reads like a thriller . . .” -- Liz Smith ― New York Social Diary
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
THE OFFICES OF THE MIDDLE East times were in the Zamalek neighborhood of Cairo, on an island in the Nile. Zamalek was a cosmopolitan oasis, with nineteenth-century apartment blocks and villas. It was known for its restaurants and cafés and was a favorite of European expats. You could go into a restaurant in Zamalek, find a waiter who spoke English, and get a beer and Western food.
When the phone rang at midday, one of our tipsters said there had been a shooting on a tourist bus in front of the Egyptian Museum. The museum is in Tahrir Square, the busiest part of downtown, the Times Square of Cairo. The newspaper was a short hop away. You go across one bridge and you’re almost there. I jumped in a cab and arrived five minutes later. Our tipster had been fast because the attack had just happened.
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster; First Edition (February 9, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1451635117
- ISBN-13 : 978-1451635119
- Item Weight : 15.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.66 x 5.91 x 0.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #630,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #132 in Iraq History (Books)
- #827 in Middle Eastern Politics
- #882 in Israel & Palestine History (Books)
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“And Then All Hell Broke Loose” is a riveting account of the last two decades of the Middle East through the eyes of brave foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Engel gets dangerously close to the action to provide readers with unparalleled access to on-going history of the Middle East. This enthralling 256-page includes nine unnamed chapters, an epilogue, and photographs.
Positives:
1. A well-written, first-rate access to the on-going history of the Middle Eastover the past two decades.
2. A fascinating topic handled with expertise, fairness and respect.
3. Vivid descriptions, Engel captures the excitement behind the stories.
4. Provides maps and a photo section.
5. A fascinating way to learn about recent historical events in the Middle East. “Everything changed with the First World War. The Middle East was reorganized, redefined, and the seeds were planted for a century of bloodshed.”
6. Engel provides interesting observations about the Middle East. “Of course, all the big men had rivals. They were all opposed by Islamic dreamers and fundamentalists. Islam has never accepted a division of church and state. For Islamists the distinction is nonsensical and heretical.”
7. Engel provides credibility in a world dictated by spin. “Through six years of direct military action, by invading, occupying, and wildly mismanaging Iraq, the Bush administration broke the status quo that had existed since 1967. He knocked over the first house. In the years that followed, Obama, elected by a public opposed to more adventurism in the Middle East, broke the status quo even further through inconsistent action.”
8. A tour of the countries in the Middle East and what went down. “The revolution Egyptians needed wasn’t for political power and democracy, but a revolution in thinking, a revolt against the Brotherhood’s bile. Egyptians needed to strip away the conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and litany of victimization that passed for education. Sometimes I thought the only way to fix Egypt would be to drop books on it. Open the bomb doors of B-52s and let Kant and Locke, Hemingway and Gloria Steinem, rain from the heavens.”
9. A look at Islam and the major divide. “Those early assassinations led to the split between Sunnis and Shiites, battle lines drawn fourteen centuries ago that US troops would encounter, and help reignite, in Iraq. There is no distinction between modern and ancient history in the Middle East. No region is more obsessed with its own past. Islam began as a force to be reckoned with, and Muslims have longed to return to their former glory.”
10. Provides readers with the evolution of religious extremism and what Muslims need to do. “A growing number of Muslim reformers say—at great physical risk to themselves—that Islam needs to evolve and rediscover more tolerant strains of the faith, schools of thought that were pervasive in Islam when it led the world in science, mathematics, and medicine. Instead, these days Islam is unfortunately mostly known for its anger, which is a tragedy for most believers of one of the world’s longest-surviving and decent religions.”
11. Interesting insights into the life of a reporter. “I’m back in Baghdad and finally in business. I drove to Jordan and back in the last 36 hours. Of course, I still didn’t have a firm commitment from ABC News, and all hell was about to break loose. But at least I didn’t have any kids, I thought.”
12. U.S. Middle East Politics. “I was also suspicious of Washington’s changing explanations as to why it went to war in the first place. President Bush’s administration said the primary casus belli was destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to not be real but were seized upon by political hawks. The secondary reason offered up was that the war was needed to stamp out the Iraqi regime’s links to international terrorists, who only arrived in numbers after it became clear there would be a US invasion. Later the administration said it invaded Iraq to bring democracy and protect human rights. The casus belli was a moving target.”
13. Make no bones about it, Engel is a brave man. Engel explains the four stages in a war zone and shares his personal experiences.
14. Describes what is to me one of the most important moments of the book. “He understood that the United States was disenfranchising Sunnis and used it as a powerful rallying cry. ISIS wouldn’t have existed without the US invasion of Iraq.” “This grievance is at the core of ISIS ideology. Simply put, no Iraq war, no ISIS.”
15. Hezbollah and Israel. “For me, the Lebanon war was a milestone. It was a war that ended without even an attempt to resolve the core grievances. It was a war designed to be painful to dissuade a hostile group, in this case Hezbollah, from attacking again. It assumed that when conflicts are complicated—and hostilities ingrained—that they can only be resolved by the fear of more pain and death. It assumes a perpetual state of unresolvable hostilities in the Middle East.”
16. President Bush and Iraq. “In reality, by occupying Iraq for years and by reopening old religious wounds and upsetting the old order, the US invasion was making a terrorist attack in the United States more likely than it would have been otherwise. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and wasn’t a nest full of terrorists.” “As I would hear over and over, from Zarqa to Lebanon and now in Syria, “The US war on terror is a war against Islam.”
17. The Arab Spring. “Economic resentments, not religious or ethnic divisions, had sent Egyptians into the streets. The Internet, Facebook, and Twitter didn’t cause the revolutions, but like television in Eastern Europe in 1989, technology accelerated the pace of events.”
18. Engels kidnapping and how he was able to keep it together.
19. The rise of ISIS. “ISIS follows Salafism (the Saudi version of Salafism is called Wahhabism), but the group effectively stole al-Qaeda’s ideology and expanded on it, embracing the most grizzly and brutal aspects of Islam’s history like enslaving female captives and beheadings, while rejecting the faith’s long traditions of tolerance.” “ISIS is not a virus that came from nowhere. It started in Iraq, and then expanded in Syria, cannibalizing the rebel movement and capitalizing on Syrians’ dashed hopes and growing anger.”
20. An excellent epilogue to close out in style. “In the end, it isn’t Washington’s responsibility to make amends between Sunnis and Shiites.”
Negatives:
1. Lacked supplementary materials that could have made this book a true 5-star effort. As an example, Engel could have provided tables depicting the demographics of the Middle East. A glossary of major players in the region.
2. The kidnapping was a fascinating story but I wanted more details. Perhaps a map, description of weapons used.
3. Though what’s here is very interesting it does lack historical depth.
4. No formal bibliography. No supplementary material other than the maps to help readers.
In summary, I enjoy these kinds of books. Richard Engel is a brave correspondent who is able to gain access to very dangerous events taking place in the Middle East and is able to report his observations in a fair, respectful and vivid manner. The best analogy I can provide is to say that if this were a movie it would be a very good action flick but lacks historical depth. An interesting read, I recommend it!
Further recommendations: “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” by the same author, “Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism” by Maajid Nawaz, “The United States of Jihad” and “Manhunt” by Peter Bergen, “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror” by Michael Weiss, “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS” by Joby Warrick, “ISIS Apocalypse” by William McCants, and “War” by Sebastian Junger.
He goes on to chronicle the life of a young, footloose, freelance correspondent. Life, as he’d known it, changed dramatically after 9/11. Nuanced stories about the Middle East became nightly television reports of American bombing campaigns in Iraq which, according to Engel, lead to the birth of ISIS. He was on hand for the Arab Spring and continued to dodge bullets and bombs, despite having lived through a kidnapping that could have ended quite differently for him.
Engel is frank about the many political faux pas of American and European leaders. He even-handedly distributes blame to both Presidents Bush and Obama for failed policies, empty promises, and escalation of unrest in the region. He is equally frank about the brutality of megalomaniacal Islamic leaders who harness the power of faith to subvert hungry, downtrodden people to do unspeakable things and sacrifice their own lives.
“ISIS evolved in plain sight, right under the world’s nose and often in front of our camera. ISIS is not a virus that came from nowhere. It started in Iraq, and then expanded in Syria, cannibalizing the rebel movement and capitalizing on Syrians’ dashed hopes and growing anger.”
As he describes his kidnapping in 2012, he maintains journalistic distance. We get a sense of the chaos, but not of his feelings, as he describes bursts from an AK-47 and the thud of an unseen body—one of his companions—hitting the ground nearby.
By the end of the book, we see a rather jaded journalist. It may no longer be worthwhile to risk life and limb to broadcast the story of living history back home. The age of cellphones, Youtube, and instant social media exposure have made journalists worthless as megaphones for a cause. Now their greatest asset in the field is the value of their lives as a commodity to trade, buy, sell, or ransom.
Though I am remain painfully ignorant about the Middle East, having read this book has given me valuable insights to help untangle my confusion at least a little bit.
Top reviews from other countries
His first destination was Egypt where he took an apartment. He made frequent visits to the cafes to practice his Arabic. It was in the the cafes that he made contact with the Tabligh who espouse the same orthodox following of the Koran as Al Qaeda. However, Tabligh’s members are peaceful and see their job as encouraging their fellow citizens to remain vigilant to the prophet’s words.
Richard found work with the Middle Eastern Times and then, in 1998, he quit the Times and started work as a freelancer for ABC.
Soon after, he struck journalistic luck when a tourist bus was bombed just outside of the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir square. Six German tourists were killed, melted to their seats by Molotov cocktails. They had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t a crime of passion. Mr. Engel says it was a calculated move to scare tourists away and hurt the Egyptian government. Two months later, terrorists shot and mutilated 58 tourists at a temple in Luxor. Richard counts these as the first al-Qaeda style attacks. Suddenly, he was in the centre of reportage as a foreign correspondent.
In 2000, his “luck” would follow him to Israel where he was hired by Agence France-Presse as its Palestinian-affairs correspondent. He rented a house in Jerusalem with his new wife and began his first attempt at a stable existence.
Peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinian and the prospect of success seemed good. Then, on September 28, 2000 Ariel Sharon and a Likud delegation visited Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the location of three sacred Islamic structure, the Al-Asqua Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of the Chain. Violence immediately broke out and the peace talks were ended. The Second Intifada was called. Tensions got worse when Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister in February of 2001 and on April 12, a seventeen-year-old suicide bomber blew up in a market just across the street from where Richard was living, Six Israelis were killed and 100 wounded. In May, another suicide bomber killed five Israelis and wounded 40 and the scourge began. Suddenly, Mr. Engel was at the centre of the world stage again. Then, September 11th came along suddenly Israel was no longer the focus of the world’s attention.
January, 2002, saw Iraq as top billing for Bush’s Axis of Evil so Richard decided Bagdad was the place to be and so began work as a freelancer again. After a conversation with his first wife, he drove into Iraq using a peace keeper visa that meant he was there as a human shield. In Bagdad, he was able to get freelancing ABC. After a few days of non-stop coverage, he was pleased to see himself introduced as “ABC’s Richard Engel.”
NBC approached him after their previous correspondent, Peter Arnett, had given an interview to Iraq television where he had questioned support of the American people for the war and said that had the US war plan had been a failure. He was fired although, in retrospect, he was correct. Mr. Engel would work as freelancer with NBC until he signed as a full-time correspondent with the network in April of 2004. Life as a journalist became increasingly dangerous as sectarian violence broke out. After the country’s first democratic election, the majority Shiite population gained control of the government. The Sunni minority had controlled the government for decades under under the leadership of Suddam Hussein. Revenge and counter-revenge were now the modus operandi.
Despite the ever-present danger of life in Iraq, Mr. Engel remained until June, 2006 when he was promoted to bureau chief. He moved to Lebanon where he looked forward to a tranquil life in the “Paris” of the Middle East, He settled in an upscale waterfront hotel. In the meantime, Pressure from President Bush had forced Israel to allow elections to be held in the Palestinian territories. Hamas was elected in the Gaza strip. Within days of Richard’s arrival, an Israel soldier was kidnapped by Hamas. The network needed someone to help report in the Gaza Strip and so, he volunteered. Israeli reacted bombing government centres, police stations and military outposts. Hezbollah, Hamas’ Shiite counterparts in Lebanon kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others. Israel invaded Lebanon and between 1,191 and 1,300 Lebanese people were killed. Most of them were civilian. Hezbollah killed 165 Israelis which included 44 civilians.
Unrest seemed to follow Richard wherever he went. The late Tim Russert, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press had joked that he should never come to Washington.
By telling his story, Mr. Engel also tells the story of recent conflict in the Middle East. An excellent Cole’s Notes history of the region helps explain the seeds of unrest. For example, he says that the secular nation-state has never been a natural political structure for those of Moslem faith. Nevertheless, the allies carved up the old Ottoman Empire after World War I without regard to religious groups which inevitably has led to conflict. I highly recommend “And Then All Hell Broke Loose” for those interested in the present conflict in the Middle East. It is an entertaining and informative narrative that brings much needed light to a complex conflict.