Despite the torrent of coverage devoted to war with Iraq, woefully little attention has been paid to the history of the region, the policies that led to the conflict, and the daunting challenges that will confront America and the Middle East once the immediate crisis has ended. In this collection, Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, co editors of the acclaimed Gulf War Reader, have assembled essays and documents that present an eminently readable, up-to-the-moment guide — from every imaginable perspective — to the continuing crisis in the Gulf and Middle East.

Here, in analysis and commentary from some of the world's leading writers and opinion makers — and in the words of the key participants themselves — is the engrossing saga of how oil economics, power politics, dreams of empire, nationalist yearnings, and religious fanaticism — not to mention naked aggression, betrayal, and tragic miscalculation — have conspired to bring us to the fateful collision of the West and the Arab world over Iraq. Contributors include:

Fouad Ajami

George W. Bush

Richard Butler

John le Carré

Noam Chomsky

Ann Coulter

Thomas Friedman

Al Gore

Seymour Hersh

Christopher Hitchens

Arianna Huffington

Saddam Hussein

Terry Jones

Robert Kagan

Charles Krauthammer

William Kristol

Nicholas Lemann

Kanan Makiya

Kevin Phillips

Kenneth Pollack

Colin Powell

Condoleezza Rice

Arundhati Roy

Edward Said

William Safire

Jonathan Schell

Susan Sontag

George Will