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Forbes
2 days ago
- Science
- Forbes
When The Sahara Was Green By Martin Williams — Review
The fascinating but little-known history of how the Sahara was transformed from a pleasant green and fertile land into the largest hot desert in the world. Green Sahara. (Collage by Kuat Abeshev. Credits for images used in the collage: Photo by David Clode ... More on Unsplash; Photo by Mark Eder on Unsplash; Photo by David Clode on Unsplash.) It is probably unimaginable to most of us to learn that there was a time only 5,000 years ago, when the Sahara was not a desert at all. Instead, it was a green and fertile woodland and vast grassy savannah that hosted a plethora of lakes and rivers, and home to countless dinosaurs that roamed freely across the land. Later, prehistoric hunters and farmers lived in the Sahara alongside a veritable zoo of iconic African wildlife, including elephants, giraffes, hippos, a variety of gazelles, Nile perch, crocodiles, aurochs, Neolithic cattle, turtles, and an enormous collection of large trees and plants. All this, according to earth scientist Martin Williams, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide and a world authority on climatic and environmental change. In his captivating memoir, When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be (Princeton University Press; 2023/2024), Professor Williams shares stories from his lifetime devoted to researching and exploring the Sahara Desert to provide us with a fascinating and readable overview of the surprisingly complex climate and geography of the Sahara. Professor Williams discusses the evidence that supports the answers that scientists know to some very basic questions, including; why was the Sahara previously much wetter than it is now, and will it become wetter again? ('Not for a long time,' p. 180). Did humans contribute to the Sahara's desertification? ('NO!' Pp. 143; 144-145). And where does all that sand come from? (Chapters 5 & 6). Paperback cover: When the Sahara Was Green by Martin Williams (Princeton University Press, ... More 2023/2024). Professor Williams points out that the Sahara Desert isn't actually all sand. Contrary to popular belief, sandy areas comprise only about 20% of the Sahara. Much of the Sahara consists of gravel along with extensive plateaus and – yes – rocky mountains. Divided into three parts, this readable history begins when the supercontinent Gondwana first appeared 7 million years ago, and follows its journey as it broke apart into major land masses: South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent. Professor Williams also explores and explains ancient glaciations, historic sea level fluctuations, the geological and climatological reasons for why the Green Sahara dried out and became a desert, and how the very old basement rock underlying Africa still influences what happens on the surface today. Compelling writing and profound knowledge are carefully combined with deep history, decades of field work, personal observations and experiences. In this meticulously researched book, Professor Williams explores a wide variety of topics from the geological and climatic changes that influenced human evolution and created the Sahara as we know it, to modern environmental and political issues that confront us today. Throughout the entire book, Professor Williams' fundamental knowledge of the region's geology, archaeology and ecology makes this book rewarding and fascinating reading. The book includes lots of maps, photographs, drawings and diagrams to illustrate the regions and concepts that Professor Williams discusses in the text. One piece of advice I have is to use sticky notes as bookmarkers for maps 1, 2 and 3 because you will be referring to these maps many times as you read the book. I was perhaps most surprised by all the ancient human artifacts, pottery – some packed with fossilized fruits – arrowheads and other stone tools, and even some fossilized bones from ancient humans as well as the animals they interacted with, just lying on the surface of the sand or gravel. Mind-boggling. The anecdotes and first-hand experiences described herein make for tremendously compelling storytelling, and could only come from someone who has spent his life researching and working in the region. Professor Williams exhibits an astonishing depth and breadth of knowledge throughout the entire book, and is generous with his explanations of the scientific evidence to the reader. The Sahara Desert is a powerful warning of what the entire world is facing and the conclusions the author reaches have far-reaching implications beyond north Africa, especially as climate change progresses ever more rapidly. This important book is highly recommended for everyone interested in environmental history or law, or prehistory, and students of any of the sciences will learn a lot from reading it. © Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | Gab | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tribel | Tumblr | Twitter
Irish Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism: A ‘crooked line' leading to war and independence
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism Author : Yanni Kotsonis ISBN-13 : 978-069121526 Publisher : Princeton University Press Guideline Price : £30 The bicentenary of the 1821 start of the Greek war of independence from the Ottoman empire has prompted several academic studies, chief of them Mark Mazower's The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe. The war (which continued until 1827) is now referred to as 'the Greek Revolution' because it indicates the creation, on liberal lines, of the first modern state in Europe. Well, almost. The author acknowledges that the 'Septinsular Republic' of the seven principal Ionian islands (1800-1807) was 'the first modern Greek state', even though Greece itself had not yet come into existence, and the islands looked across at a mainland that remained under Turkish rule. Kotsonis excellently details the way that the 'revolution' simmered while the imperial powers of Russia, Britain and France weighed up their territorial options: the war of independence could not have opened if diplomatic conditions had not permitted it. It was a 'crooked line' rather than a straight one, leading directly to war and then independence. The impetus may have come from Greeks in Odesa, but the decisions were made by the great powers, as they were at Vienna in 1815 and Versailles in 1918-19 and, as we see only too horribly today, on the future of Ukraine (where the Greek 'revolution' began!) READ MORE On the nature of 'violence', Kotsonis offers that it was caused, and justified, by the concept of a unified Greek-Christian state whose primary purpose was to defeat and eliminate the Muslim Turk. 'It was a Christian war of liberation from an alien, Oriental power.' [ Old-fashioned Greece has no chance of becoming truly developed Opens in new window ] This seems to explain how Greece became, then and now, the border of Europe and its bastion against immigration, which is largely Muslim. As a historian's argument, this is both simplistic and naive, ignoring as it does the chessboard profile of the Balkans. His story ignores the entire 'Great Idea' (first enunciated in 1844) which aimed to embrace all ethnic Greeks and directly or indirectly caused the Balkan wars of 1912-13 and the disastrous Asia Minor campaign of 1920-22, which humiliated and bankrupted Greece morally and politically. The modern state was created by the fiat of the Russian, British and French empires. The author, although Greek in origin, is a Russian specialist (at New York University) and his bias in this book towards the Russian contribution to Greek independence is overwhelming and at times alarmingly overstated. His assertion that 'Greek independence became a certainty because of Russian arms and diplomatic persistence' is simply unsustainable. One 'Russian' fact is, however, inescapable: the 'revolution' was conceived in Odesa, which, like Taganrog, Nizhyn and Kherson (now fought over by Ukraine and Russia), was originally a Greek city, and remains a matter of concern for diasporic Greece today. Kotsonis's book needs to be read alongside Liberalism after the Revolution: the intellectual foundations of the Greek state c. 1830-1880 by Michalis Sotiropoulos because the emergence of violence and that of liberalism have coincided throughout modern Greek history and have bedevilled the creation of a modern democratic state up to the present day. Kotsonis tells us that 'Solidarity within the elite' had effectively suppressed discontent, which was certainly true of the well-established landowners and tax-gatherers under Ottoman rule of mainland Greece. It remains true of conservative Greece today, and explains the virtual exclusion of the Left from political life. It also explains the continuing presence of discontent and the undercurrent of violence (which frequently breaks the surface) within the Greek state which is, admittedly, not within the scope of this book. In Kotsonis's thesis, war and nationalism were synonymous, but he seems to discount the continuing presence of violence. To refer in his epilogue to Pontic Greeks coming into the new state, without referring to the violence (both physical and mental) which that influx has occasioned, is to limit his argument about how 'violence' exists in the modern state. Kotsonis acknowledges that the consequences of creating the state of Greece 'are still with us' and that the status of modern Greece is 'up for grabs'. He can say that '1821 is a current event' and that 'the Revolution is still with us and there are new stories to be told', but he doesn't tell them, although his references to his research make it clear that he knows what they are. The insistence throughout this book on the polarisation of Christian and Muslim conceals the fact that languages, faiths, cultures and, indeed, landscapes themselves can never be defined by nation states (as Kapka Kassabova shows in her recent Elixir: in the Valley at the End of Time). Kotsonis's writing is casual, and refreshingly unacademic, but the lack of a bibliography is disappointing, and the author's suggestions for further reading are surprisingly superficial. Richard Pine's books include Greece Through Irish Eyes (2015) and The Eye of the Xenos: Letters about Greece (2021). He contributes Letter from Greece to The Irish Times.
Hindustan Times
24-05-2025
- General
- Hindustan Times
Doctors by Nature: An exclusive excerpt from a book about how animals heal themselves
Here's the good news: even by replacing just 10 percent of our lawns with diverse plant gardens, we can boost biodiversity, maintain insects, and provide medicinal plants for our pets. We may even use these gardens to grow medicinal plants for human use, which would help curb the overharvesting of some medicinal plants in the wild, and recreate the natural pharmacies that traditional healers rely on. Because of all these benefits, local and national governments are increasingly developing initiatives for individual households to create native habitats. In Germany, the Thousands of Gardens—Thousands of Species project aims to create oases of biodiversity, including gardens, balconies, and open spaces with a goal to curb insect declines. The project is funded in part by Germany's federal government and partners with seed companies, nurseries, and garden centers to provide seed packages to participants. In Minnesota, the Lawns to Legumes program provides grants to homeowners to develop natural gardens. In my home country of the Netherlands, an organization called The Pollinators provides free bags of seed mixes to create insect gardens. In (the American state of) Georgia, my new adopted home, I am on the board of directors of the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail, a nonprofit organization that aims to expand pollinator habitats. Initiated by former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the trail was established in 2013 and grew to almost two thousand gardens in the first ten years of its existence. As an organization, we provide guidance on what plants to use and how to maintain the gardens. We encourage people to plant native milkweeds to support monarch butterflies. My own lab provides milkweeds and other plants for participants in the metro-Atlanta area. It may seem like a small thing to create a garden, but if enough people do it, we can recreate a lot of much-needed nature. One common theme in this book has been that animals need choices. They do not just need shelter and food. They need medicine. And to get that, they need access to a diversity of plants and other natural products. Preserving nature is the best way to maintain their choices, and so is providing diverse gardens to pets, zoo animals, and our neighborhood insects. So, as you are building your garden, I invite you to take a moment to witness the spectacles of the natural world that will unfold there. Live in the moment and witness that ant, bee, or butterfly that visits your garden. Watch your cat or dog frolic in the flowers. And as you are watching, ask yourself: What is the animal doing? Is it eating? Is it drinking? Is it finding shelter? Or, maybe: Is it collecting medicine? (Excerpted with permission from Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves by Jaap de Roode, published by Princeton University Press; 2025)
The Hindu
23-05-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Understanding the social, cultural and geographical contexts of Buddhism
The world is increasingly getting obsessed with self-promotion and the thinking that it alone can bring about peace and progress. The growing selfie culture is a manifestation of this daily obsession, backed by the technology of the day. Often, a 'perfect' identity is carefully curated on social media with a focus on the self. Swayed by the glitter of social media, there appears to be no actual pursuit of knowing the inner self. Eventually, this relentless self-promotion is leading to distress. The fear of having less and the desire for more have contributed to a balance sheet of unhappiness. The illusory self It's perhaps the right time to re-read the teachings of the Buddha, who argued thousands of years ago that the self is an illusion -- and that our belief in it is the cause of most, if not all, of our sufferings. Poring over ancient Buddhist texts, Jay L. Garfield, Maria Heim, and Robert H. Sharf have teamed together to dismantle notions of the self in How To Lose Yourself: An Ancient Guide to Letting Go (Princeton University Press). Their suggestion? 'Better to lose your self!' The writers contend that Buddha had argued for letting go of the self, which allows us to see more clearly the innumerable causes and conditions that come together to create our experience and that make us who we are. 'When we allow our fantasies of self to dissolve, we discover instead the radically interdependent nature of our existence.' Opening up another flank of study on the ancient religion, Douglas Ober contests the commonly held belief that Buddhism 'all but disappeared' from India after the 13th and 14th centuries, and saw a revival only in the mid to late 19th century. In his book, Dust on the Throne (Navayana), he notes that Buddhism had always been there, and that two centuries of archaeological excavation and textual scholarship now point to a long, enduring, and 'unarchived' Indian Buddhist afterlife that extends to the modern day. Ober's exhaustive research told him that Buddhism had an indelible influence on shaping modern India. As he writes in the Introduction, 'A Dependent Arising', the theory of Buddhism's 'disappearance' from the subcontinent is 'little more than a useful fiction, deployed to wash over a more complicated historical terrain involving periodic Buddhist resurgences and trans-regional pilgrimage networks.' He shows that Indian's modern Buddhist revival began nearly a century before 1956, when the Indian government celebrated '2,500 years of Buddhism' and when B.R. Ambedkar led half a million followers to convert to Buddhism. Backstory of a revival Ober argues that the 'revival of Buddhism' in colonial and postcolonial India led to a slew of movements, from Hindu reform movements, the making of Hindu nationalism, Dalit and anti-caste activism, as also Nehruvian secular democracy. He tells the stories of individuals and communities that kept Buddhism alive, not least the incredible account of J.K. Birla, eldest son of entrepreneur B.D. Birla, who financed major Buddhist constructions in pilgrimage centres like Rajgir, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya, and also in new centres of 'urban Buddhist activity', including Calcutta, Bombay, and New Delhi. While Ghanashyam Birla, J.K. Birla's younger brother, sided with Gandhi and Congress, J.K. and his father firmly supported the extreme Hindu right and the Hindu Maha Sabha, although as Ober notes, 'they never stopped supporting Gandhi either.' Efforts to resurrect Buddhist archaeological heritage are an ongoing process to help connect its monumental past with its philosophy. In his book, Casting the Buddha (Pan Macmillan India), Shashank Shekhar Sinha traces the Buddhist heritage sites and the cities they are located in to understand their larger geographical, sociocultural, and historical contexts. It is an illustrated history of Buddhist monuments in India, spanning 2,500 years. For the purposes of this book, Sinha writes in the Introduction, 'monumental history' plays on the word 'monument' and discusses Buddhist edifices, sites, and connected histories. Lives of monuments A closer look reveals how the 'lives of the monuments' resonated with the people and communities around them, including monks, laity, kings, traders, guilds, landlords, agriculturalists, and villagers. Over time, these structures have acquired different forms and meanings, and have also become important 'sites of social and cultural interactions.' The buildings are 'complex ecosystems' which capture the changing times and give an idea about belief systems, rituals, stories, and folklore. For instance, writes Sinha, the sculptured panels on the gateways of Sanchi not only depict events from the life of the Buddha but also the Jataka tales and the mythical bodhisattvas. Ober contends that Buddhism was an indispensable part of the daily lives of Indians from many walks of life. 'They spent their days reading and reinterpreting Buddhist scriptures, attending and delivering dhamma talks, building and rebuilding Buddhist shrines.' The lives of Ambedkar, Birla, Kosambi, Mahavir, Sankritayan, and many other figures 'help us realise that there is no one single identity at the heart of modern Indian Buddhism... [it] continues to have an important but often unacknowledged role in Indian society.' As Indians relived the past to find a better present and future, 'a classless, casteless, egalitarian society,' they found the Buddha, writes Ober. That as a society we have not yet been able to eradicate discrimination and poverty means the debates on issues like 'caste, inequality, morality, social order, and belonging' are not over. The quest to grasp the historical Buddha and understand his 'inherent mission' must continue, and this says a lot about our modern times and predicament. Sudhirendar Sharma is an independent writer, researcher and academic
Irish Times
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East by Fawaz A Gerges – engaging read for seasoned observers
The Great Betrayal: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East Author : Fawaz A Gerges ISBN-13 : 978-0691176635 Publisher : Princeton University Press Guideline Price : £30 The Great Betrayal in the title of Lebanese-born American professor of international relations Fawaz A Gerges's new book refers to the continued failure of western and Arab elites to grant the people of the Middle East the freedom they have craved since the 19th century. Time and again, flickers of hope of a freer, more prosperous future have been extinguished – a fate that Gerges traces to an exploitative clientelist system put in place in colonial times and which has continued in familiar, if slightly altered, fashion in the post-independence era. Western powers' presence in the region was both opportunistic and expedient, taking advantage of the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the first World War , and the Arab quest for freedom which resulted in Arab armies, under the Hashemite King Faisal, fighting with the Allies in the same conflict. The British, having already moved into Egypt, with a pliant King Farouk installed, set up similar arrangements in the Levant, as did the French. The post-settlement mandate system allowed both the UK and France to honour Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination, while maintaining control of a strategically important region without the need for a large military contingent. It was a system that was imperialist in everything but name and was resented as such by the natives, fuelling resentment, not just of the British but also of the local elites that administered the states. READ MORE The system would echo throughout the postcolonial era. Decolonisation, as Gerges says, did not usher in freedom from foreign intervention, with the French and British continuing to meddle, and also the United States and the Soviet Union, who both exploited the regional fissures, propping up increasingly brutish dictators in return for 'stability' in their interest. The rottenness of the arrangements would also do lasting damage to the reputation of liberal democracy among Arab peoples. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which occurred in the slipstream of the Ottoman break-up, also fed into resentment among Arabs, and is, as Gerges suggests, responsible for the enduring popularity of conspiracy theories in the region. First, the client states established by the British in Egypt, until 1952, and in the various British and French mandates in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria vitiated the public respect for parliamentary democracy, viewed as it was as an ineffectual figleaf for a corrupt system. Later, under the Arab strongmen of the postcolonial era, secularism took a similar battering in the eyes of the public. It didn't help that the very secular strongmen from time to time cultivated as it suited them Islamists to see off left-wing opposition. Such was the case in Sadat and Mubarak's Egypt and also in Boumédiène's Algeria, a foolish cynicism that would later bring blowback in each country and which was replicated in the Israeli security establishment's nurturing of Hamas as a rival to Fatah from 1987 on. The arbitrary drawing-up of states, such as Syria and Iraq, by the Sykes-Picot agreement, on formerly Ottoman holdings – purely to benefit French and British interests – also created communities of competing ethnicities who found themselves on the wrong side of a border that had never previously existed. These would, post-independence, be exploited in turn by figures such as Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, and Saddam Hussein, to keep a lid on restive populations. Gerges foresees a multipolar world determining the future of the region, where the less moralising approach of both Russia and China is likely to land somewhat better among Arab peoples than the American sermons that are not backed up by deeds But it is for the ruinous short-sightedness of US policy in the Middle East that Gerges reserves particular scorn. This arose initially in efforts to rein in regional nationalists who were a bit too friendly with the Soviets (such as Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, whom MI6 and the CIA helped overthrow in 1953), and also propping up the young state of Israel (though it is also true that Washington was considerably less indulgent of Israel in the decades before the Islamic Republic of Iran became a serious regional player). After struggling to bring Gamal Abdel Nasser to heel throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US cultivated relationships with Egyptian presidents Anwar Sadat (getting him on board with normalising relations with Israel in 1978) and Hosni Mubarak, lavishing Cairo with tens of billions of military aid over decades, while living standards in the country declined and popular discontent festered. Support for the Shah of Iran's bloody rule also paved the way for a dark regime of a different stripe to take hold in Tehran thanks to popular rancour. Saddam was another dictator nurtured, until he miscalculated by invading Kuwait in 1990. It would, of course, be the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the encapsulating 'War on Terror', that would do lasting damage to America's reputation in the region. It was perceived, Gerges says, as Washington declaring war on the entire Arab world. It would also spiral into disaster for the region, resulting in the rise of Islamist insurgents in Iraq, who later morphed into the Islamic State under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and an increasing Iranian influence in the region. The Biden administration's support for Israel as it pummelled Gaza with unremitting cruelty, while Washington condemned Russian aggression in Ukraine, has most likely forever discredited the lofty words of western governments in the Middle East. Gerges has stirring faith in the people of the Arab world, never giving into despair. As someone from a Christian Arab background who has written a number of studies of jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State , he might be forgiven for sinking into pessimism, but he refuses any facile theories of historical inevitability and gives short shrift to the notion popular in the West, and among certain Arab elites, that Arab peoples, and Muslims in general, are not suited to democracy or functioning societies. Gerges pushes back at the notion that the Arab Spring failed, asserting instead that it is not yet over. It has, rather, weathered a couple of setbacks after its initial waves, one in 2011–2103 and the next in 2018–2019; he insists it will eventually bear fruit. The eventual downfall of the Assad regime last December is the first sign that he may be right. (The Great Betrayal was completed before the Syrian opposition took Damascus. I don't know whether Gerges considered adding a postscript to reflect it, though he may have considered it prudent not to make any premature judgments.) [ One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This and The World after Gaza: holding the West to account Opens in new window ] Even as the past 15 years have been marked by sectarian killings across the region, Gerges also sees a post-sectarian generation growing up in the 21st century in the Middle East, who, he predicts, will fill the vacuum left by the dominant ideologies, Arab nationalism and political Islam. An ultimately successful campaign, predating the Arab Spring, by young people in Gerges's native Lebanon to give people the right to remove their religious affiliation from their national identity card is an embodiment of this spirit. [ Donald Trump's Gaza plan piles pressure on his 'favourite dictator' Opens in new window ] Nonetheless, he acknowledges that the formal Arab opposition is a mirror image of the existing despotic order: illiberal and insular, and it tends to be able to quickly out-organise and outpace liberals and progressives, just as the Islamists in Iran did following the 1979 revolution. For progressive elements to gain the upper hand will take time, he says, requiring the 'conceptualisation and institutionalisation' of such a post-sectarian identity. Gerges foresees a multipolar world determining the future of the region, where the less moralising approach of both Russia and China is likely to land somewhat better among Arab peoples than the American sermons that are not backed up by deeds. Gerges is wary of the Russians, given their bloody role in putting down the Syrian rebellion, though he gives far too much credit to China for its supposed support of the Palestinians – in reality, this support is fine talk as much as the Americans' advocacy of human rights is, and Beijing shows no signs of giving up its lucrative investments in Israel's security sector. In fairness to Gerges, though, he does acknowledge that the hands-off approaches of both Russia and China are likely to embolden regional dictators as much as US support did in the past. It is fair to say that things are likely to get worse before they'll get better. The Great Betrayal is a fine, if not exactly essential book. It is a collection of thematics rather than a close study of any particular country or era. Some countries – Egypt, Syria and Iraq in particular – are given greater consideration than others. There are only occasional forays to the Maghreb, if only to illustrate points, and hardly anything is said about Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, with only Yemen given extensive treatment on the Arabian peninsula. Perhaps Gerges deems the petro-autocracies as lost causes for Arab freedom (there is not a single mention of Jamal Khashoggi in a brief passage on Mohammed bin Salman). And while Gerges makes his broader argument with conviction, the scope is perhaps too broad, and the prose a bit dry, for it to appeal to the general reader. More seasoned observers of the region will find this an engaging read if not a source of anything particularly new. Further reading Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations by Avi Shlaim (Verso, 2009) A fine collection of essays and reflections by the esteemed British-Israeli historian on the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, ranging from the Balfour Declaration to the 2008 Gaza invasion. Clear-sighted and critical of some of Israeli society's founding myths, this volume also features a reflection on his friend, the late Edward Said. The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East by Juan Cole (Simon & Schuster, 2014) Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, studies the generation of Arabs that propelled many countries in the region to revolt in 2011. Replete with extensive interviews and research on the youth movements of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, it is a book as indispensable for sociologists as it will be for contemporary historians, suffused with a sense of hope that the intervening years have not quite snuffed out. The Return by Hisham Matar (Penguin, 2016) Libyan-born British writer Matar's Pulitzer-winning memoir about his return to Libya after the fall of Gaddafi to find out more about the 1990 abduction, from the family home in Cairo, of his dissident father, whom he never saw again. A moving tale of love and loss that reads like a thriller, especially in one encounter with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in a London hotel, and it unfolds against the backdrop of post-revolution Libya's collapse into chaos.
