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By: Bernard Lewis
As the Birthplace of three religions and many civilizations, the Middle East has for centuries been a center of knowledge and ideas, of techniques and commodities, and, at times, of military and political power. With the historical - and still growing - importance of the Middle East in modern politics, historian Bernard Lewis's cogent and scholary writing brings a wider understanding of the cultures of the region to a popular audience.
Sent by: Darius Kadivar
When Azadeh Moaveni travelled to Iran as an adult in 1998, a policewoman stopped her and her relatives at the door of a cinema and ordered the women to wipe off their lipstick. They obeyed, but immediately reapplied their lipstick inside. Moaveni learned that Iranian women were equally adept at arranging forbidden trysts with their boyfriends, watching Ally McBeal on forbidden satellite dishes, and engaging in the multiple daily acts of personal freedom that expressed their defiance of the myriad restrictions imposed on them by the Iranian Government.
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