Eclipse of the Sunnis

Public Affairs

Price: $25.95

DEBORAH AMOS

discusses

Eclipse of the Sunnis:
Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East

Harvard Book Store and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University are pleased to welcome NPR’s Iraq correspondent, DEBORAH AMOS, for a conversation about the dislocation and destabilization of millions of Sunni Muslims and her new book, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East.

Hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims displaced or exiled by the conflict in Iraq have spread across the Middle East, unbalancing that sensitive region. From Amman to Beirut and Damascus, Amos follows the impact of one of the great migrations of modern times. The history of the Middle East tells us that one of the greatest problems of the last forty years has been that of a displaced population, angered by their inability to safely return home and resume ownership of their property—as they see it. Now, the pattern has been repeated. A new population of exiles, as large as the Palestinians, has been created.

This particular displacement stirs up the historic conflict between Sunni and Shia. More significant even than the creation of colonial nation states a century ago, the alienation of the Sunni middle class has the capacity to cause resounding resentments across the region for generations to come.

"Deborah Amos stuck around to trace the fallout from the Iraq War after most other journalists had moved on. And she already had decades of experience in the region under her belt. This commitment to the story has allowed her to see the war in its true historical context: as a Middle Eastern earthquake that will forever change the power equation between Sunnis and Shia, and as a vast human tragedy. These are not abstractions in Eclipse of the Sunnis; Amos’ intelligence and heart as a reporter make the fate of Iraq’s millions of refugees unforgettably intimate." 
—George Packer (The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq)

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Deborah Amos covers Iraq for NPR News. Her reports can be heard on NPR’s award-winning Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She spent a decade working in television news, including ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline. She lives in New York City.