Moscow: Aspect-press Publ., 2014, 207 p. Much has been written about the events of recent years in the Middle East in Russian journalism and scientific literature. Mostly Russian authors focus on the development of events in one or another Arab country, on the peculiarities of the American and Western reaction to the so-called Arab Awakening. The book by I. D. Zvyagelskaya, one of the leading Russian experts on the Middle East, is characterized by a comprehensive approach. It not only analyzes the transformation processes taking place in the region at a high professional level, but also identifies the peculiarities of Russian Middle East policy in accordance with the author's task. The author emphasizes that the hierarchy of interests of the Russian Federation in this region is dictated by its geopolitical position, Russia's traditional and new ties with the states located here, and the development of local conflicts, although at present the Middle East does not occupy the first places on the scale of foreign policy priorities of the Russian Federation (pp. 8-9). The given topic also determined the structure of the work, in which a large place is given to a retrospective analysis of Soviet Middle East policy, the cardinal changes that took place in it at the turn of the 1990s. A brilliant knowledge of the history of the Middle East, all the details and turns in the development of the Middle East conflict allowed the author to give a brief but rather complete picture of Soviet policy towards Arab states. I. D. Zvyagelskaya notes that the extremely ideologized Soviet approach to the new nationalist regimes established in the Arab world after the collapse of the colonial system, as a result, negatively affected the positions of the USSR. He restricted "the freedom of maneuver of the USSR in the region, tied Soviet policy to the policy of such allies who, by the very nature of their interests, played the role of spoilers in solving problems that were significant for the ... Read more