Developed within the framework of the seminar organized in 2013 with the same monographic title, it includes articles by notable specialists, who take part in a multidisciplinary discussion on the region’s challenges, in light of the sectarian confrontations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Yemen: Geopolitics of the Conflict Between Sunnis and Shiites: A Global Vision (Barah Mikail); Saudi Arabia vs. Iran: A Regional Balance of Power (Fatiha Dazi-Heni); The Media’s Role in Middle East Sectarian Division (Khaled Hroub); Economic Competition for Regional Supremacy: Iran vs. Saudi Arabia (and Qatar) (Thierry Coville); Mediation Against Sectarianism (Oliver McTernan), and Confessionalism and Modernity: The Origins of the Syrian Paradox (Alejandra Álvarez Suárez). It also includes reviews of Antoni Segura’s book Estados Unidos, el islam y el nuevo orden mundial. De la crisis de los rehenes de 1979 a la primavera árabe (The United States, Islam and the New World Order. From the 1979 hostage crisis to the Arab Spring, review by Lurdes Vidal Bertrán) and Hamid Dabashi’s book Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest (Luciano Zaccara).