David Lamb spent 25 years roaming the world as a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times (and collecting eight Pulitzer-Prize nominations along the way). He spent three of those years — 1982-1985 — as the Times’ Middle East bureau chief, based in Cairo. The Arabs: Journeys Beyond the Mirage isn’t just a summation of those experiences. Two decades after it was originally published (by Random House in 1987, revised in 2002), the book remains a lucid introduction to the main themes of Middle Eastern politics, history and social issues that most westerners find intractable. Read the full review...