Africa, United States, Historical Study & Educational Resources, Middle East, World, Reference 

Despite the turmoil of Arab nationalism and fundamentalism, Middle Eastern wars, and oil crises, the history of the Arab world has been little known and poorly understood in the West. One reason may be that, for more than half a century, there has been no up-to-date single-volume work that chronicles the story of Arab civilization - until now.

Albert Hourani, distinguished historian and interpreter, has written a masterwork - a panoramic view encompassing twelve centuries of Arab history and culture. He looks at all sides of this rich and venerable civilization: the beauty of the Alhambra and the great mosques, the importance attached to education, the achievements of Arab science - but also internal conflicts, widespread poverty, the role of women, and the contemporary Palestinian question.

Hourani describes how the new religion of Islam created a far-flung Arab Muslim world that embraces lands reaching from the shores of the Atlantic to Iraq and the Indian Ocean. Each has its own geographical features and historical traditions, yet certain themes and experiences are common to all: the rise and spread of Islam, the growth of the Ottoman Empire, the expansion of European trade and empire, and in the last decades, the challenge of Islamic resurgence and integration into a new kind of world. He provides a clear and comprehensive interpretation of the paths of the Muslim religion, its divisions, its authority and traditions, its current contradictory powers to unite and to divide.

Throughout, social institutions and culture are intertwined with politics and economics. The text is studded with famous names from the past - Ibn Khaldun, al-Ghazali and Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Saladin and 'Abd al-Nasir (Nasser) - as well as those of the present - Hafiz al-Asad, Saddam Husayn and Mu'ammar Qadhafi, and the Nobel Prize winner Najib Mahfuz.

Albert Hourani is Emeritus Fellow, St. Antony's College, Oxford. His books include Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Europe and the Middle East, and The Emergence of the Modern Middle East.

Taken from the inside flaps.

"Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples offers, in beautifully clear English, a study that supersedes all earlier treatments . . . It is fair but never afraid to take a point of view. To write such a sound work, ranging over centuries and topics, is an astonishing feat." - Roy Mottahedeh, Harvard University

"In one definitive work after another Albert Hourani has shaped the way so many of us think about the Arab world. He has done all this with a graceful literary sensitivity that is his trademark and his signature. Now Professor Hourani has written his great work of synthesis. And I believe that it will be the definitive work for many, many years to come." - Fouad Ajami, The Johns Hopkins University

"This is Mr. Hourani at his best. The book is elegantly written, broad in its coverage of the whole Arab world and the Arab era in Middle Eastern history from pre-Islamic Arabia to contemporary times. Mr. Hourani deals with a full range of issues - empire and states, the structures of societies and elites, religion, high arts, and popular culture, the condition of the common people, including demographic movements and standards of living, and political movements. Almost every passage in this book is a deft, thoughtfully worked out summary of important historical issues. Difficult issues ranging from political policies to the Palestinian question to the role of women in society, and many others, are treated with even handed, balanced, and detached judgment . . . This book is truly wonderful." - Ira M Lapidus, University of California, Berkley

Taken from the back cover.