As Anatoly Sharansky, he was a political prisoner of the Soviet Union, an experience he recounted in an earlier memoir, FEAR NO EVIL. He took the name Natan when he moved to Israel to join his family, shortly after his release in 1986, which was the result of an international campaign and the intercession of President Reagan. Sharansky draws on this unique perspective, and on his career as an Israeli politician, to view the crisis in the Middle East through the lens of freedom and tyranny. Dividing the world into governments that allow dissent and those that stifle it, he is forthright and uncompromising in his assessment of those nations which operate by terror, and of the prospects for bringing democratic ways to the Middle East. Sharansky was a participant in the failed attempts to bring about agreements between Israel and Palestine at Oslo, and he provides insider accounts and an informed analysis of those negotiations. THE CASE FOR DEMOCRACY became newsworthy when it was reported that President George W. Bush considered it one of his favorite books, and it is said to have been formative in both the ideas and the language of Bush`s State of the Union address in January, 2005. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.