The Geography of the Middle East Book

List of Illustrations 7

List of Maps 8

Preface 9

I The Region 11

1 Scale and orientation 11

2 Content and circumstance 15

3 Does it matter? 21

II Antiquity 25

1 Before the dawn 25

2 Earliest History 28

3 Crowded Millennium 33

4 Persia, Greece, Rome 38

5 Some features of Middle Eastern antiquity 44

III Nine Centuries of Islam 46

1 The Impact 46

2 The Golden Age 49

3 Turks and Mongols 53

4 Darkest Age 57

5 Islamic civilization 61

IV Modern Times 66

1 Sultan and Shah 66

2 The Nineteenth Century 70

3 The Last Half-century 75

V Peoples and Languages 88

1 Territories and Peoples 88

2 Islam today 91

3 The Arabs 97

4 Some Arabworld minorities 102

5 The Turkishspeakers 110

6 The Aryan-speakers 116

VI The Arab Countries 122

1 'Iraq 122

2 The Lebanon 127

3 Syria 130

4 Jordan 134

5 Egypt 139

6 The Sudan 147

7 Sa'udi Arabia 154

8 The Yemen 159

9 Southern Arabia 162

10 The Persian Gulf States 166

VII The Non-Arab Countries 172

1 Persia 172

2 Turkey 179

3 Cyprus 185

4 Israel 188

VIII Public Life 194

1 The disunited states 194

2 The field of government 197

3 The field of politics 204

4 Going Communist 210

IX Private Life and Society 213

1 Why backwardness? 213

2 Towns and town life 215

3 Cultural aspects 221

4 Villages and Tribes 226

X Lands and Factories 233

1 Agriculture: a general view 233

2 Agriculture: country by country 238

3 Industry 247

XI Oil 252

1 Facts and Comparisons 252

2 The nouveaux riches 258

XII Conclusion and Prospect 263

Appendix A States of the Aden Protectorate and Trucial Coast 270

Appendix B Middle Eastern Oil production and reserves271

Appendix C Some books for further reading 272

Index: Table of Subjects-by-Countries 278

General Index 280