This is the tale of a people who formerly resided in a megalomaniacal state that was created in the likeness of its megalomaniacal ruler. Then, after yet another conflict, a foreign army invaded, overthrew the government, obliterated the state, and then started creating a new nation. The inhabitants in this narrative watched with terror as their world broke up into a hundred different cities, as barriers rose between them, and as bodies piled up in the streets. A Stranger in Your Own City delivers a remarkable de-centering of the West in the history and current circumstances of the region, from the American invasion to the Arab Spring, ISIS, and beyond.