Following up his acclaimed study of the Six-Day War, historian Oren analyzes America's 200-plus–year involvement in the Middle East, from battling Barbary pirates to toppling Saddam Hussein. Dietz, one of AudioFile
magazine's Best Voices of the Century, with a measured, leisurely reading style, turns in another solid performance. Dietz comes from the classic school of readers, sounding like an action movie–trailer narrator in a more contemplative mood. His almost brusque masculine swagger is highly appropriate for Oren's tale of American misadventure in the Middle East, compounded in equal parts of the three titular components. Counterintuitively for so long an audiobook, Dietz's tortoise-like performance adds to, rather than detracts from, Oren's prose, with Dietz's careful pace giving Oren's carefully researched tome an added measure of dignified wisdom. Available as a Norton hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 20, 2006). (June)
