This is the latest version of Al-Manhal English Non-Fiction wishlist. We are also acquiring fiction books in Arabic and English as well as non-fiction books in Arabic.
We do not necessarily endorse the views of all the books listed below, but we think that they are relevant for readers to delve into and form their own critical thoughts.
This list is subject to constant changes based on our needs and our stock’s growth.
Top Priority, but expensive and hard to find
- Syria's peasantry, the descendants of its lesser rural notables, and their politics by Hanna Batatu
- Syria: Revolution from Above by Raymond A. Hinnebusch
- The Struggle for Syria: A Study in Post-War Arab Politics, 1945-1958 by Patrick Seale
- Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook
Syria
- The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria by Samar Yazbek
- Syria Speaks: Art and Culture From the Frontline edited by Malu Halasa
- Syria's Uprising and the Fracturing of the Levant by Emile Hokayem
- Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State by Dawn Chatty
- The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant by Michael Kerr
- Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East by Peter Hill
- Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century Damascus by James Grehan
- The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham by Aaron Y. Zelin
- Our Hearts Burned for Home: Uyghur Militants in Syria’s Civil War by Emily Feng
- No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria by Rania Abouzeid
The Region
- The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East by Nicholas Morton
- Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin
- Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798 -1939 by Albert Hourani
- We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World by Alex Rowell
- The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
- The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll
- Empire of Manners: Ottoman Sociability and War-Making in the Long Eighteenth Century by James Grehan
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan
- Crescent Dawn: The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern Age by Si Sheppard
- The Arab Conquests by Justin Marozzi
- Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid Political Thought by Hayrettin Yücesoy
- From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan by Suzy Hansen
- Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul by Charles King
- Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilisation by Leon McCarron
- The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915–1918 Khatchig Mouradian
- What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East by Fawaz Gerges
- Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East by Fawaz A. Gerges
- Needs That Bind: Materializing Nationality in Post-Ottoman Regimes by Orçun Can Okan
- King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
- Purist Pursuits: Language, Global Ideas, and the Creation of Western Armenian in the Ottoman Empire by Jennifer Manoukian
- Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds Davis by Natalie Zemon
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism
- Crucible of Light: Islam and the Forging of European Civilization by Elizabeth Drayson
- A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam by Thomas Bauer
- The Renewal of Islam: Thinkers and Believers of the Modern Era by Fitzroy Morrissey
- Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary
- The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective by Gabriel Said Reynolds
- In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire by Robert G. Hoyland
- The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein
- Christianity and the Qur'an: The Rise of Islam in Christian Arabia by Gabriel Said Reynolds
- The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam by Sidney H. Griffith
- The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the "People of the Book" in the Language of Islam by Sidney H. Griffith
- Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms: A Study of Theodore Abu Qurrah's Theology in Its Islamic Context by Najib George Awad
- Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years by Paula Fredriksen
- The Syriac World: In Search of a Forgotten Christianity Françoise Briquel Chatonnet
- Justice and Islamic Law: Mazalim Courts and Legal Reform Jonathan by A.C. Brown
- Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy by Jonathan A.C. Brown
- A Short History of the Ismailis by Farhad Daftary
- Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations by Emily Conroy-Krutz
- Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources by Olivia Remie Constable
Miscellaneous
- The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s by Jason Burke
- On Antisemitism: A Word in History by Mark Mazower
- Europe: A New History by Roderick Beaton
- Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert
- The Romans: A 2,000-Year History by Edward J. Watts
- 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin
- The World of the Cold War 1945-1991 Vladislav M. Zubok
- New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West by David E. Sanger
- Why Plato Matters Now by Angie Hobbs
- Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World by Simon Hall
- Hubris: The Origins of Russia's War Against Ukraine by Jonathan Haslam
- Silk Silver Opium: The Trade with China that Changed History by Michael Pembroke Hon Justice
- Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company Patrick McGee
- The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature by Charlie English
- Capitalism and Its Critics: A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World by John Cassidy
- Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths Series (Mythos, Heroes, Troy, Odyssey)
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss
- The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk
- Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin
- Peak Human: What We Can Learn from History's Greatest Civilisations Johan Norberg
- The Age of Revolutions: And the Generations Who Made It by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal
- The West: The History of an Idea by Georgios Varouxakis