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As an academic publisher, it is our mission to publish books and provide resources that further the understanding of current events. According to the Association of University Presses, “Often the most complete and illuminating background research and knowledge for a breaking news story is only available in scholarly books from presses committed to the public interest.”

The following books provide peer-reviewed scholarship that offer context to current events in Iran and the Middle East. Each of the books are Open Access, meaning they can be read or downloaded for free by anyone with an internet connection.

• Making Endless War: The Vietnam and Arab-Israeli Conflicts in the History of International Law, edited by Brian Cuddy and Victor Kattan (2023), looks at how two conflicts have shaped the relationship between law and war since 1945. In their review, LSE Review of Books wrote that the book “provides a powerful statement on how episodes of violence, however specific they might appear, cannot be understood independent of greater forces – including (and perhaps especially) the principles and institutions that present their mission as an effort to constrain armed conflict.”
• Struggles for Political Change in the Arab World: Regimes, Oppositions, and External Actors after the Spring, edited by Lisa Blayes, Amir Hamzawy, and Hesham Sallam (2022), looks at the long-term effects of the Arab Spring. “This volume showcases writing by some of the best scholars working on politics in the Arab world today, all of them at the top of their game,” says a review published in Foreign Affairs.
• Presidential Accountability in Wartime: President Bush, the Treatment of Detainees, and the Laws of War by Stuart Streichler (2023) examines how and why holding US presidents accountable for war crimes is an obligatory but impossible task in the American constitutional system. Using the treatment of war-on-terror detainees under President George W. Bush as a case study, the author integrates international humanitarian law into a constitutional analysis of the repercussions of presidential war powers for human rights around the world.
• Making Sense of the Arab State, edited by Steven Heydemann & Marc Lynch (2024), explores the surprising strengths and weaknesses of the Arab state. International Affairs described the book as “an accessible and important account of Middle Eastern political science, contentious politics and international relations."

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