With worldwide attention focused on the Middle East, National Geographic provides extraordinary coverage of the region, rich with history and culture but ravaged by war and conflict. <i>National Geographic Atlas of the Middle East, Second Edition</i> maps and profiles three new countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan. The spread on religion is extended to include an analysis of Sunni and Shi'ite dynamics while the ethnic coverage is expanded to document the plight and increasing influence of the Kurds. New city maps of Istanbul and Dubai are added, as well as a new Israeli-Palestinian Conflict spread with an in-depth time line of 15 maps. A variety of themes are presented, from religion, population, and ethnic and linguistic groups to oil, fresh water, and development indicators such as trade, foreign aid, infant mortality, urbanization, and education. Pictures, flags, fact boxes, and graphs complement these powerful, newsworthy topics. A time line to 2008 and a place-name index make this new atlas a valuable, topical, and fascinating reference.