The Arabs

by Peter Mansfield

Traces the history of the Arabs, surveys the modern Arab states, and looks at their religion, culture, traditions, and politics

Genres: History, Middle East, Nonfiction, Islam

Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Peter Mansfield was a British political journalist. He was educated at Winchester and Cambridge. He resigned from the British Foreign Service over the Suez affair in 1956. He worked in Beirut, editing the Middle East Forum and wrote regularly for the Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, the Indian Express and other newspapers. From 1961 to 1967 he was the Middle East correspondent of the Sunday Times.

Reviews

[Carol Harrison]

I think this is an important book, even though it ends in 1992, just after the first Gulf War. It provides a detailed history of the Arab people through the millennia, and of today's Arab states over the decades of the twentieth century. What is striking to me is how similar today's situation is, although perhaps more extreme, to how it has been in the past, and how Western responses have always tended to increase, rather than ameliorate,frustration and desperation. I recently visited the UAE, and have also been to Egypt, so found the topic especially interesting, being able to picture the landscape.
The book would have benefitted by more maps, a timeline of events, and a glossary of terms and acronyms. Other than that, I found it very informative, well-written, and fascinating.

[Jeff Keehr]

This was the text for my Middle East history course at Eastern Michigan University in the winter of 1980.

[Cam]

Old school book here, so its a bit long winded and i found it a bit hard going reading it cover to cover. However, it does provide a solid background of why the middle_east / north africa is so fractured and will be for a long time.

[Jade]

3.5/5.

A comprehensive look into the history and political situation of the Arab people across the Middle East up to the early 1990s. Perhaps somewhat dense for someone's first introduction to the history of the region, but interesting nonetheless.

[Sami]

The goat

[Liam Porter]

This was a perfect introduction to a linguistic, religious and geographical culture that I knew next to nothing about prior to reading. In one volume the author carefully covers all the ground necessary to understand who the so called "arabs" are, where they have come from and where they are going. I would gladly read this again at some point to cement my understanding of key events. Everything in this book is about the presentation of facts, which are clearly contextualized, recounted and analysed with an intelligent layperson in mind. Unlike many modern nonfiction books there are no digressions into subjects of academic in-fighting or politically correct literature reviews which give no help to the curious outsider.

Don't be fooled by the cover: the content is weighted towards the 20th century, and includes a state-by-state assessment of 20th century political history. In fact the book seems to contradict its own cover artwork:

Any writer who embarks on an attempt to describe and interpret the contemporary Arab world to Western readers is confronted by a set of formidable difficulties. At the superficial level he encounters stereotyped vision of hte Arabs, and of the Islamic religion which is closely associated with them in the Western mind. A more complex problem is that the average educated Westerner is unaware that he suffers from prejudice towards the Arabs. The New England or Hamsptead liberal would be alarmed to find himself making a derogatory generalization about "the blacks" "the chinese" or still more "the Jews." He feels no such compunction in his thoughts about "The Arabs." [The] word "Arab still seemed to conjure up a picture of a shaikh in flowing robes, brandishing an outdated rifle as he urged his camel across the sand dunes to attack a neighbouring encampment. [pg491]

I personally would have liked more information about the decline of the Muslim empire, but that's just me. The story ends at the publication date of 1975, but the predictions within of growing importance of the arabic states on the world stage have proved to be accurate.

[Ashley]

I love a good non-fiction, but did I ever want to shoot myself while reading this. Although informative, which I enjoy, it was possibly the most boring book I have ever read. So boring, that I pictures the clear eyes guy reading the whole thing. I cannot even give it the proper review that it deserves as a book because nothing stood out to me.

[Tony Ramirez]

A superb overview of Islam and the Arab World (no Indonesia) and a useful and mercifully brief summary of each nation's history, including a surprisingly prescient one of Iraq.

[Nur]

Arab world and how the Arabs have become what they are today...

[Carl]

Rather dated, drops some threads, heavily from an English perspective, and biased toward more modern events, but a decent enough survey for the Middle East.