The Arabs

A History

Recommended by Issandr El Amrani, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #35 in Middle East

To American observers, the Arab world often seems little more than a distant battleground characterized by religious zealotry and political chaos. Years of tone-deaf US policies have left the region powerless to control its own destiny—playing into a longstanding sense of shame and impotence for a once-mighty people. In this definitive account, preeminent historian Eugene Rogan traces five centuries of Arab history, from the Ottoman conquests through the British and French colonial periods and up to the present age of unipolar American hegemony. The Arab world is now more acutely aware than... more

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Arabs from the world's leading experts.

Issandr El Amrani I chose this book because I think the weight of history and the historical context is really important. There have been a number of general histories of the Arab world. What Eugene Rogan does in this book is to provide a very well written, comprehensive and general history of the Arab world in modern times. What he does well is to highlight how much interaction there has been in the Arab world with outside forces, especially the West, and how so much of the modern region has come out of that experience – imperialism, colonisation and so on. (Source)


Similar Books

If you like The Arabs, check out these similar top-rated books:


Learn: What makes Shortform summaries the best in the world?