"The Middle East has a poetic record stretching back five millennia. In this unique book, leading scholars draw upon this legacy to explore the ways in which poets, from the third millennium BC to the present day, have responded to the effects of war. They deal with material in a wide variety of languages including Sumerian, Hittite, Akkadian, biblical and modern Hebrew, and classical and contemporary Arabic and range from the destruction of Ur in 1940 BC to the poetry of Hamas and Hezbollah. Some poems are heroic in tone, celebrating victory and the prowess of warriors, others reflect keenly on the suffering that war causes. The result is a work that offers fresh insights into the poetry of the Middle East and provides a unique reflection of the ways in which this most violent and pervasive of human activities has been reflected in different cultures."--Bloomsbury Publishing.