A history of the Arab peoples - Softcover

Albert Hourani was elected a Fellow of Magdalen and appointed Lecturer (later Reader) in the Modern History of the Middle East at Oxford in 1948. From 1958 until 1971 he was Director of the Middle East Centre. He died in 1993. Malise Ruthven is the author of, amongst other works, Islam in the World and Islam: A Very Short Introduction.

Hourani (Emeritus Fellow, St. Anthony's College, Oxford) is the author of several well-known books on the Middle East, including Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1983) and The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Univ. of California Pr., 1980). This work, the first full-scale single-volume history of the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Islamic world in several decades, begins with Islam's rise in the 7th century and carries the rich and imposing story of Arab civilization to the late 1980s. In broad, sweeping strokes, Hourani moves easily from mosque to marketplace, from sultan to imam , from nomad to city-dweller, from Mohammed to Sadat. He dwells on the Ottoman Empire and on the European colonialism that followed, and concludes with a discussion of the modern resurgence of Islam that offers hope to thousands of Muslims and appears so threatening to Westerners. Written by a master historian, this work is now the definitive study of the Arab peoples. Recommended for interested laypersons and scholars; required reading for all specialists.
- Roger B. Beck, Eastern Illinois Univ., Charleston
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