A History of the Middle East: Fifth Edition Paperback – Illustrated, August 27, 2013

In this exceptional book, Peter has very well encapsulated the very long Middle East history in an abbreviated, yet comprehensive way. While highlighting the major milestones in his pleasant writing style, he never forgets to mention important and interesting quotes by prominent politicians of their times, and may be of all times. Further, as an Egyptian Middle Eastern, I find the reciting of the history quite unbiased and neutral. This book has been my quick reference for history events and will certainly continue to be.

This volume is packed with facts and gives a great overview of the history of the Middle East going back to ancient times. That being said, it is a little dry and could have used a little more narrative at times to keep one’s interest. Also, with as much time as it covers, it could have used some timelines or family trees of the different dynasties. Some more maps would have been nice too.

i went to a rotary mtg where a guy talked for 30 mins abt Islam. occurred to me that there was a hole in my knowledge that you could drive a truck thru. this is an excellent read. considering the amt of news coming from that area of the world, i blv we would all do well to read something like this. answers questions you did not even know you had. i found myself saying, 'so that's why...'

Very detailed history which is what I was looking for. The writing is easy to follow. Good book!

[This is my first Amazon review but I hope that it won’t be immediately discounted for that reason. Even the most respected reviewers had to write their first!]First off, I am by no means a Middle Eastern scholar (hence my reading this book), and so I can’t really comment on the historical accuracy of most of the events described. But there are elements other than historical accuracy that I can more readily comment on, and so here they are.The organization of the book can make it difficult to keep track of where you are in time and space at any particular moment. I found myself having to frequently reread sentences and paragraphs, particularly at the beginning of new sections, in order to orient myself. The chapters are generally chronologically ordered, but the information within is not typically presented in a strictly chronological way. For example, the chapter titled “The Years of Turbulence” (which covers from about 1970-1991) is broken down into sections titled “The Rise of the Oil States,” “Egyptian Initiatives,” “Israel/Palestine and the Lebanese Victim,” “Islamic Reassertion, Revolution and War,” and “Iraq’s World Challenge.” In the “Egyptian Initiatives” section, you may read about Egypt’s role in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon before moving on to other topics related to Egypt in that time period. It can therefore be a bit disorienting when you’ve moved on to read the Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon section and have to revisit Egypt’s role within that new context. This breakdown into sections focusing on one region or concept at a time is common throughout the book.That said, I imagine it’s incredibly difficult to structure a book of this nature. In attempting to cover a topic that is so historically, geographically, culturally, politically, and religiously broad and with so many overlapping and intersecting people and events, any attempt at logical organization will have its drawbacks. Overall, the organizational idiosyncrasies were not so difficult to overcome as to make me put the book down. But if you’re looking for a quick and easily digested overview, this may not be your best option.What did threaten my attempt to finish reading was the abundance of basic typos, especially in the later chapters. These typos range from missing words to repetitive words/phrases (for example, on pg. 426, “Though they grabbed most of the most headlines…”) to more obvious mistakes like the misspelling of Afghanistan as “Arghanistan” (pg. 428). I know many people can overlook these small errors, but I had a history professor who always said that spelling and grammar mistakes are a sign of poor editing, and poor editing almost always means other mistakes and inaccuracies have been overlooked as well. I did find at least one glaring factual inaccuracy: on the bottom of pg. 152, it says that August 2, 1914 was 5 days after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, but Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, not July 28. Although it ultimately has no bearing on the specific topic being discussed, it did put me on my guard and make me wonder about other potentially erroneous statements in areas I’m not as familiar with and therefore wouldn’t know were errors.Perhaps more notable, my recognition of the increasing number of typos coincided with a feeling that the previously balanced viewpoint was shifting to one side, specifically that the tone was becoming noticeably harsher toward Israel’s role in events. I started to notice the trend in the chapters dealing with the more recent events, i.e. post-Gulf War. I’m neither pro- nor anti-Israel, but the tonal shift was noticeable enough to make me curious. I wondered if the shift could be explained by the fact that the book has been revised and updated by a second author, so I flipped back to the title page and the introduction page.The book was originally published in 1991, with a second publication in 1992. The next publication was not until 2003. The original author, Peter Mansfield, passed away in 1996, so it seems logical to assume that Nicolas Pelham, credited with updating and revising, was responsible for the bulk of the post-1992 information that’s presented (although Mansfield could conceivably have contributed to some of the 1992-1996 updates). Whether it was conscious or not, Pelham displays a subtle but clear favoring of the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at times it was difficult for me to fully trust his depiction of events, or at least to trust that he was conveying the full story. I don’t think it should completely turn you away from the book, since dealing with an author’s potential biases are an inevitable part of reading any non-fiction work, but I wouldn’t rely on this particular breakdown of the events as the sole basis of your knowledge on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This book was very well researched-like exhaustive. I learned how the middle east has been an ever changing, over run, and often violent in regime change for hundreds of years. Attempts at creating islands of change in a sea of political turmoil, and conflict that shape shifts back and forth between tribes. Interplay by outside government that disperse their own doctrine, and to some degree commerce and trade for a price-and for creating puppet rulers that are soon swallowed up. Spinning back and forth in a time capsule from the middle ages, to the present time, and back again.

easy read well researched up to date information helps clarify who the principal players are and how they arrived to where they are now.

Excellent Book