It is a fascinating [story], and exceedingly well told. Mr Rogan manoeuvres with skilful assurance, maintaining a steady pace through time, and keeping the wider horizon in view even as he makes use of a broad range of judiciously chosen primary sources to enrich the narrative

A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today

engrossing and capacious... compulsively readable

Rogan gives a lucid account of political developments throughout the Arab lands, unpicking messy tangles such as the Lebanese civil war or the fragmentation of Palestinian political movements... One of the special features of this book is that it draws on Arab writings (by memoirists, journalists and others) to give an idea of how the Arabs have experienced their own history....one senses Rogan's underlying sympathy with his subject

Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs. Few scholars know their subject better than Eugene Rogan, while even fewer are capable of rendering so complex a subject so engagingly readable. It is a joy to open, and a deprivation to put down.

With eloquence, verve, and understanding, Eugene Rogan rightly reminds us that the world, and the Arabs themselves, need to remember the past. If we are to build a better relationship between the Arab world and the West, if we are to avoid making the same mistakes again and again, we need to know Arab history from its many high points to its low ones. I can think of no better guide on this crucially important journey than The Arabs.

The masterly management of the material goes along with plain English, free of academic jargon.

Intimate, emotional, often painful but at time uplifting, these stories uncover how the customs of this deeply religious and intensely traditional society can cause real suffering for many women'

This isn't a book for the faint-hearted, but is a chilling yet emotional read for anyone who cares to know about the real plight of Afghani women. A powerful collection of true-life stories compiled over the years (and re-introduced by the author's own experience). Dear Zari takes the blanket off Afghani women, showcasing the bleak reality of their existence

Dear Zari is disquieting but essential reading. Occasionally uplifting, frequently harrowing, and unfailingly candid, it is a must for anyone – male or female – seeking to better understand Afghanistan

Pankaj Mishra has produced a riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections. He follows the intellectual trail of this contested history with both intelligence and moral clarity. In the end we realise that what we are holding in our hands is not only a deeply entertaining and deeply humane book, but a balance sheet of the nature and mentality of colonisation

Highly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim reactions is particularly topical

Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia

Sophisticated ... not so much polemic as cri de coeur, motivated by Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards its own destruction

Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ... The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated ... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us read the past in a fresh light

[Full of] complexity and nuance

Subtle, erudite and entertaining

Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia

A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious