Product Description

In a work of profound and lasting importance, Albert Hourani tells the definitive history of the Arab peoples from the seventh century, when the new religion of Islam began to spread from the Arabian Peninsula westwards, to the present day. "A History of the Arab Peoples" is a masterly distillation of a lifetime of scholarship and a unique insight into a perpetually troubled region. For this edition, Malise Ruthven continues the history to include such recent events as the crisis in Iraq, the civil war in Algeria and the aftermath of September 11th.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9672 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Review
"'Here at last is a genuinely readable, genuinely responsive history of the Arabs.' Edward Said 'Splendid... history in the grand style.' New York Times"

About the Author
Albert Hourani was Director of the Middle East Centre He died in 1993. Malise Ruthven is the author, of Islam in the World and Islam: A Very Short Introduction.

Customer Reviews

An excellent introduction to Arab history
Without doubt this is the best introductory book I have read on the subject of Arab history. Hourani's book is highly informative yet also very readable. The book covers Arab history over a timeline starting from pre-Islamic times right up to recent events in the 1980's and serves as a superb introduction for anyone with an interest in this area of the world. The book studies many aspects of life in detail. For those who are using this study as starting point, will find that Hourani gives them much to think about and provides many refernces for further research. The book also contains useful maps, timelines and family trees. The topic area is vast but Hourani has made skilful inrodes into it leaving the reader feeling informed about the Arab people both past and present.

Thoughtful and readable
In this excellent book, Albert Hourani traces the history of the Arab people from the appearance of Islam, through the rise and fall of the caliphates and the Ottoman empire, to the colonial era of the Europeans and the creation of the nation states that now stretch from West Africa to the Gulf. He gives much insight into the development of culture, law, science and the many strands of religious thought in the region, and into the roots of some of the troubles of the present day. On finishing this book I felt better informed, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the Arab world.

Getting a handle on an enormous subject
This is one hefty book. The writing style is clear -- it's not turgid or academic, but it's also not sparky or exciting. For me, the first part of the book was quite a slog because it was all new information; once onto a period I knew a bit more about, it was a lot easier to read. It's best to look on this book as a way to get a general feel for the region/subject, rather than to learn about particular countries or episodes in depth.

Of course it's impossible to write history that is 100% free of bias, but this book does well. Hourani avoids rhetoric and doesn't try to frame the whole of Arab history within any kind of grand narrative; attention is paid to the importance and function of all kinds of ideas, ideologies, social groups and so on. A book with a scope as huge as this is never going to please everyone; it's true that he misses out a lot of detail, but well, he had to. Recent terrorist activity doesn't get much attention (though there is a bit in the interesting 2002 afterword by Ruthven), but given the overblown familiarity of the typical western reader with the idea of "Islamic terrorism", I'd say it's useful and in fact important for a book such as this to concentrate on the 99% of Arab life which is not about terrorism.

The book would have been better and probably more reliable if the footnotes and referencing had been more thorough. However, it's a great book for getting a handle on an enormous subject. So give it a try - though in this edition the print's pretty small, so keep your glasses handy! :)