Vali Nasr - Vali Nasr, Senior Adjunct Fellow on the Middle East, Council on Foreign Relations; Professor of Middle East and South Asia Politics and Associate Chair of Research at the Department of National Security, Naval Postgraduate School
Trudy Rubin - Trudy Rubin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary in 2001 for her columns on Israel and the Palestinians. She has special expertise on the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe.
In 2003 to 2006, Rubin made seven trips to Iraq and two to Iran, and also visited Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, China and South Korea. She is the author of "Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq," a book of her Iraq columns from 2002 to 2004.
The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
In The Shia Revival, Vali Nasr offers an analysis of the ancient struggle between Shias and Sunnis for the soul of Islam. The book sheds light on historic moments of Shia/Sunni competition over power, as well times of collaboration between the two sects against outside oppressors. Nasr believes that the sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni, and the historic marginalization of Shias throughout the Islamic world, will come to play a large part in determining our collective future. Nasr believes Westerners have too often conceived of the Middle East through a Sunni perspective, and that in these changing times the Western world must now learn to understand the history, motivations, and philosophy of the Shia as well.
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