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Title: History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani ISBN: 0-446-39392-4 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9 (20 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Extremely detailed with major historical gaps
Comment: What a tedious read!!! Where is the history of Suleyman The Great?! Did the crusades happen?! Did America ever do anything in Tripoli?! Do women exist in the modern Muslim world?!!!
While being extremely detailed about historical social practices and religious thought, Hourani left out key historical periods.
If you want to come to better understanding of Arab society, I am sure that you can find a more concise book that does not neglect / ignore key world events.
Rating: 3
Summary: Dry, dull, and suspect
Comment: Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples is at best a long-winded encyclopedia recap of Arab history. Sorry, but there's no other way to express this. After reading books by Bernard Lewis and Philip Hitti, I'd hoped for as much insight and stylish historical narrative here. Particularly, I was hoping to fill in the historical gaps in my reading by getting information on the last couple centuries, something notably lacking in Hitti. Although Hourani does cover this later period, and these later chapters are the stronger ones in the book, he does so in a flat and uninspiring manner.
To try to explain more clearly, reading Hourani meant reading essentially a series of connected snapshots, detailing the political and cultural status of the various countries and peoples at various times. There is no real sense of history moving when reading this, and there should be. Another thought that came to mind late in the reading was that Hourani is not giving us names. Okay, he certainly does not leave them out. But no one seems to be doing anything. We get extended passages of "and then the (insert European country here) made a deal with the forces of (whatever) and later their influence decreased. By then events in country (fill in here) had proceeded to the point that..." and so on. The earlier chapters are similar, but even drier, as Hourani discusses theological movements and such, casually throwing around words and phrases that even if we've read them, could stand to be reviewed. It's confusing, boring, and took forever to reach the later chapters. It doesn't have to be this way (see my review of Hitti's History of the Arabs for an example of how a long and detailed survey book should be written).
Besides everything else, the book is choppy and I have to question its basic honesty in at least some areas. An example of the first point: Muhammad - obviously an indispensable figure in any Arab history survey - is dead and gone by page 21 (and the book starts on page 7). Fortunately there are any number of retellings of Muhammad mythology, but this is really rushing things. What else was glossed over? Actually, quite a bit, which leads me into my second point. Although Hourani has not written an overly political text, he had not disguised his emotions very well. One would be hard pressed to find anything critical about Islam or Arabs here. He describes Muhammad al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi movement that reigns today in Saudi Arabia, as just a religious reformer. The only 'reforms' he can think of to mention are ceasing the reverence given to dead saints and to certain Sufi ceremonies. The extreme brutality of that order somehow gets overlooked. Although the timeline extends at least to the end of the Iran Iraq war, Hourani never even mentions terrorism. I know many people think terrorism is only the work of a tiny number of Muslims, but to read Hourani one would think it doesn't even exist. And as far as Israel goes, I won't even go into it. Actually, he does keep a fairly tight lid on his opinions here, but some slip out indirectly. For instance, after the founding of Israel, many Jews in Arab countries emigrated there, in many cases leaving no Jews in their old communities. Somehow Hourani never mentions that they were forced to leave. In a similar manner, attacks on U.S. marines led to a pullout from Lebanon. But what kind of attacks? A massive suicide bombing, perhaps? You'd never know it from reading Hourani. The more recent the chapter, the worse it gets.
In short, you can do better than to read this. There are plenty of good books out there that are any of the following: longer (or shorter if you prefer), more accurate, more readable, livelier, more detailed, more honest, less opinionated (or more, if you prefer, and more upfront about it), and just plain better. I was personally hoping for better, but I'm going to just have to keep on looking.
Rating: 5
Summary: Interesting and concise
Comment: This is a concise introduction to the history of the Arab people. It is fairly easy to read, yet comprehensive; interesting, yet dispassionate. Albert Hourani does an excellent job presenting an overall picture of Arab history and society. I particularly enjoyed how this book considers history as more than a mere collection of events and dates or the conquests of kings. Rather, for every historical period, it attempts to paint a picture of the lives of ordinary people. Thus we learn about education, religion, law, marriage, and other aspects of society. This is a major strength of the book.
Naturally, in a book about Arab history, a great deal of emphasis is put on Islamic religion, which is perhaps the most potent force shaping Arab history and culture. In a way therefore this book also offers an excellent introduction to Islam and Islamic history. Nevertheless, I would have liked to see more material about pre-Islamic times. Furthermore, while the title "Arab peoples" acknowledges the fact that most of the modern-day "Arabs" are descended from non-Arabs who at some point adopted Arab language and culture, this point is not made explicit in the text, and the pre-Arab history of these peoples is ignored. Having said that, I admit that it is impossible to include any more information about Arab history in the same number of pages (500), making this book a definite accomplishment. It is an excellent and readable introduction to Arab history, and a lead to other more specialized books (listed in the 27-page bibliography). The index alone reads like a who's who in Arab history.
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Title: The Arabs: A Short History by Philip K. Hitti, Philip Khoury ISBN: 0895267063 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin ISBN: 0805068848 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Orientalism by Edward W. Said ISBN: 039474067X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 October, 1979 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A History of Islamic Societies by Ira M. Lapidus ISBN: 0521779332 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 22 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun, N. J. Dawood, Franz Rosenthal ISBN: 0691017549 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 1969 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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