Reviews for A History of the Arab Peoples

The average rating for A History of the Arab Peoples based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-11-12 00:00:00 Stefano Ley For some reason unbeknownst to me I have a fascination with the history of the Middle East/Anatolia. From the Byzantines to the Ottomans I just find the history of the region of the people really interesting. I think it may be because there is such a unique mixing of people, cultures, and ideas in the region that more engaging to me than, say, Tudor England or Colonial America. This region has seen some of the greatest world empires, it is the birthplace of the major Monotheistic religions, and has exchanged hands innumerable times, resulting in a unique blending of cultures and peoples not seen anywhere else. I am not as well read or knowledgeable about the Arab portion of the story so I was eager to dive into this extensive book. And extensive this book is. Hourani aims to provide the reader with a total understanding of how Arab (and later non-Arab Muslim) society was structured. From the early Arab tribesmen and (I kid you not) the type of poetry they created to cosmopolitan Damascus to the dry stretches of North Africa Hourani dives into the dynamics of how these societies operated and their relationship with the wider Arab speaking world. While this does get a bit dry at times (insert desert pun here) the reader gets an excellent window into how the people of the past lived. For me the most illuminating part was all the interlocking interests that existed in the Arab speaking world. It wasn't as simple as the Shah/Caliph/King issuing an order and it being carried out, there were many layers of control, influence, and interests. For instance there is a pretty constant back and forth between the settled peoples of the land and the nomadic herdsman. Depending on political conditions (how strong or weak a central government was), the climate, and economic factors the settled folks might be dominant over the herdsman or the other way around. It was a relationship in constant flux and impacted the local balance of power. Another fascinating relationship was between the religious leaders (the ulama) and secular authorities. On the one hand there were those who held that the religious and secular worlds should be separate ("In hell there is a valley uniquely reserved for 'ulama who visit kings.") while others who thought they could influence leaders and ensure that religious laws and customs were enforced in the land. Of course it didn't hurt that secular leaders would build and maintain mosques, endow religious colleges, and generally look to secure legitimacy from the religious leaders. This relationship, like all others across time, changed with the coming of modernity and the need for Arab states to modernize in the face of potential domination by the West. I had also under appreciated the impact that the spread of Arab as a spoken language would have on societies. By conquering and holding such a vast stretch of land the initial Arab conquerors brought their language to a wider population and made it the official language of government. This also made it the unofficial language of trade across the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Sea as well as across the silk road trade routes. This common language and shared Islamic culture really helped facilitate long term trade and credit and drive the economic engine of the Arab world, which at the time far surpassed contemporary Western Christendom. For me, though, the most compelling section dealt with how European powers came to dominate and occupy Arab states and how this dominance altered the traditional patterns of life in these states. Being conquered by unbelievers who were clearly organizationally, technologically, and economically more advanced than the Arab societies was a shock to those societies. One passage especially stood out to be regarding just how dominant the West had become economically:"British exports to the eastern Mediterranean countries increased 800% in value between 1815 and 1850; by that time beduin in the Syrian desert were wearing shirts made of Lancashire cotton." The reaction to this dominance was a move by many states to emulate Western culture, from colleges, to governmental structures, to new economic relationships. As Western business interests expanded in these states, primarily driven by resource extraction and agricultural projects, there was a mixing of European migrants and the upper echelon of Arab speaking societies. This facilitated the further transfer of such Western ideas such as freedom, nationalism, and representative government to these states, but mixed with Islamic beliefs and sensibilities. While the base ideas were Western the Arab speaking states adapted them to their own history, circumstances, and culture. All in all this was a very extensive and exhaustive examination and exploration of Arab speaking cultures from its beginning in the Arabian Desert through roughly 2002 (hence the New Afterward). If you are looking for an introductory book on Arab speaking and Islamic culture I would suggest Destiny Disrupted, it is a lot more accessible to a first time reader and shorter too. But if you are looking for a more complex and complete view, of Arab speaking societies and already have a pretty solid knowledge base of Islamic history, this is the book for you.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-04 00:00:00 Bree Rowlands Starting with a biographical sketch of Ibn Khaldun, this History of the Arab Peoples starts with a brief description of the pre-Islamic era before through the caliphates, the Ottoman era, and "the age of European empires", concluding in 1990. The preface and afterword by Malise Ruthven from the more recent edition provide a biography of Hourani's own life and a summary of events up to the early 2010s, but much has happened since then. This is primarily a book of social and cultural history, and concerns institutions or governing philosophers that have arisen from, or indeed reacted to, periods of instability. As a general reader, I found this was a useful guide to the region's history; a specialist may have a better response as to what Hourani chose to emphasize or leave out.