And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East by Richard Engel

Richard Engel brings to his writing the same conversational, smart, and sometimes snarky tone that he brings to his news reports. While not a long book, its 219 pages are incredibly full of insight, history, and first hand accounts of what he has seen on the ground in the Middle East over the span of 20 years. 

First as a print journalist then as a TV news correspondent Engel immersed himself in life in Egypt at the start of his career, learning Arabic and educating himself on the history and culture of the people he was living among and reporting on. Many know him as the NBC corespondent who was kidnapped and held for 5 days but continued to report on the region he had become so knowledgeable about. He isn't presenting a partisan teller of tales, he places both praise and critique where he sees it regardless of party affiliation. 

If you have any interest about events in the Middle East, want to know about the formation and rise of ISIS, and want to know some of the history of the Sunni-Shia relations Engel gives a good deal of of this in an easy to follow way. 

The events in the Middle East over the last two decades, from the 1997 massacre of tourists at the Cairo museum to the arrests of Mubarak and Morsi, from the second Intifada to the fall of leaders like Saddam in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya, Engel has had a first hand view and tells the stories he as he witnessed them. 

(Finished May 17, 2016)