"Ajami draws on a variety of contemporary texts, mostly unknown or inaccessible to Western authors.... The result, based on six extended visits to Iraq and a lifetime of travel and experience, is the best and most idiosyncratic recent treatment of the American presence there. A series of firsthand portraits, often brilliantly subtle, of some fascinating players in contemporary Iraq."
... Read moreVictor Davis Hanson, Commentary "The Foreigner's Gift stands in the tradition of Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul.... A wide-ranging, brilliant investigation of Iraq and the Arab world since the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Elegantly, Ajami interweaves history, literature, philosophy, politics, and religion with a sensitive grasp of politics in Iraq and the United States. A masterpiece."
Josef Joffe, Publisher-editor of Die Zeit "Few have the requisite ability and courage to accurately diagnose the Arab world's myriad political maladies.... Fouad Ajami, who has performed the task admirably on more than one occasion, does not disappoint with The Foreigner's Gift."
Rayyan al-Sharaf, San Francisco Chronicle Show Less