The Arabs Peter Mansfield

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Peter Mansfield explores social, political and historical aspects - from the pre-Islamic nomads of Arabia, the life of Muhammad and the rise of Arab power that followed to the Western colonial period, to the tragedy of Palestine and the modern Arab renaissance, reinforced by the power of oil. He shows that the consequences of centuries of struggle for dominance between Christendom and the Islamic world survive to this day in various forms. Bringing events into the 1990s, he explores the causes and consequences of the Gulf War, the continuing conflict over Palestine and the difference in attitude between Arab liberals and fundamentalists as to the future outlook of the Arab world.;A section of the book surveys each individual Arab state. The final section considers the Arabs themselves, their characteristics, aspirations and future.

If you're looking for a compact but detailed history and description of the Arab world, it's difficult to imagine a book that can top this one. I picked it off the shelf thinking it would be just another dull chronology - but when I examined its layout, I just had to have it. It consists of three sections: a detailed and highly readable 300-page history of the Arab world; a set of brief chapters on each Arab country; and a final short section on how the Arabs are viewed by both themselves and Westerners.
The ability to pick a single country to read about individually is the aspect of the book that most stands out for me: I was really interested in reading about just five or six Arab countries, and I wasn't about to buy a book on each of them. This book solved the problem brilliantly.

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