Covering the history of the region from its 'golden age' as a port city in the fifth century A.D. to the formal birth of Hamas as a resistance movement after the first Intifada and continuing past Operation Cast Lead into the present day, Caridi traces the rise, growth and evolution of Hamas into one of the key players in the search for a way through the central crisis of the Middle East today. With intelligence, dexterity and a humanitarian ethos, Caridi performs the central function of history: to look at a people's actions through that people's eyes.