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The Camel and the Wheel
Why, for many centuries, was the wheel abandoned in the Middle East in favor of the camel as a means of transport? This richly illustrated study explains this anomaly. Drawing on archaeology, art, technology, anthropology, linguistics, and camel husbandry, Bulliet explores the implications for the region's economic and social development during the Middle Ages and into modern times.
327 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Richard W. Bulliet
275 books43 followersRichard W. Bulliet is a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University who specializes in the history of Islamic society and institutions, the history of technology, and the history of the role of animals in human society.
Richard grew up in Illinois. He attended Harvard University, from which he received a BA in 1962 and a PhD in 1967.
Several of his books focus on Iran but deal also with the larger Muslim world, including The Patricians of Nishapur: a Study in Medieval Islamic History (1972), Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (1979), and Islam: the View from the Edge (1994). His books on a broader view of Islamic history and society include Under Siege: Islam and Democracy (1994) and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (2004). His book (1975) brings together his interest in the histories of technology, animal domestication, and the Middle East, dealing for example with the significant military advantage early Muslim armies gained from a slight improvement in the design of cloth camel saddles. He would return to the history of animal domestication with his Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships (2005).
He is the writer and editor of books of more general interest as well, including The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century (editor, 1998), The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East (co-editor, 1996), and The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (co-author, 1997). He has also written several novels which draw on his knowledge of international politics and the Middle East, and is a promoter of the validity of comics as an art form.
His first fiction book, Kicked to Death by a Camel (1973), was nominated for an Edgar for “Best First Mystery”. His other fiction includes Tomb of the Twelfth Imam (1979), The Gulf Scenario (1984), The Sufi Fiddle (1991), and The One-Donkey Solution (2011).
Bulliet’s commentaries and opinion pieces on the Middle East have appeared in such newspapers The Guardian, New York Times International, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Richard grew up in Illinois. He attended Harvard University, from which he received a BA in 1962 and a PhD in 1967.
Several of his books focus on Iran but deal also with the larger Muslim world, including The Patricians of Nishapur: a Study in Medieval Islamic History (1972), Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (1979), and Islam: the View from the Edge (1994). His books on a broader view of Islamic history and society include Under Siege: Islam and Democracy (1994) and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (2004). His book (1975) brings together his interest in the histories of technology, animal domestication, and the Middle East, dealing for example with the significant military advantage early Muslim armies gained from a slight improvement in the design of cloth camel saddles. He would return to the history of animal domestication with his Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships (2005).
He is the writer and editor of books of more general interest as well, including The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century (editor, 1998), The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East (co-editor, 1996), and The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (co-author, 1997). He has also written several novels which draw on his knowledge of international politics and the Middle East, and is a promoter of the validity of comics as an art form.
His first fiction book, Kicked to Death by a Camel (1973), was nominated for an Edgar for “Best First Mystery”. His other fiction includes Tomb of the Twelfth Imam (1979), The Gulf Scenario (1984), The Sufi Fiddle (1991), and The One-Donkey Solution (2011).
Bulliet’s commentaries and opinion pieces on the Middle East have appeared in such newspapers The Guardian, New York Times International, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 30, 2016
In the early 1970s, Richard W. Bulliet was a young scholar of Islamic history who was intrigued by the lack of wheeled vehicles in Islamic sources. North Africa, the Levant and Iran were known to have war chariots, Roman roads and cart traffic in earlier centuries, but a few hundred years later camels dominated and some writers even seem to be unaware of how wheeled vehicles were designed. His 1975 book The Camel and the Wheel is the result of his research into this curious turn of events.
The first area that Bulliet explores is the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. He attempts to track the history of the domestication of the one-humped camel, noting that camel-breeding populations in the Horn of Africa only milk camels or use them as pack animals, rarely riding them, and this may have been their initial purpose. The key development in the replacement of the wheel, he claims, was the invention of the North Arabian saddle. This made it possible to successfully use the camel in a military context, which in turn allowed camel-breeding populations to gain control of the Arabian spice trade, and once they held such power, other populations emulated them.
In Iran, the situation is more complex, as there the two-humped camel was originally used. Searching for traces of its domestication takes the author far afield into Central Asia and China. However, use of camels, while very ancient, never completely marginalized wheeled transportation until after the Islamic invasion.
In his afterword, Bulliet notes that in spite of the modern association of the camel with backwardness, to contemporary inhabitants of the Middle East the transition to the camel would have been seen as a technical advance in many respects. As Roman roads were no longer maintained as the Roman Empire collapsed, the camel’s ability to traverse road-less terrain would have been a great advantage. The inability of some parts of the Greco-Roman world to adopt better harness technology for horse-drawn carts also contributed to the wheel’s sidelining.
The author’s ability, in exploring the replacement of the wheel, to take on other sciences outside a narrow view of Islamic history, such as zoology and animal breeding, is quite impressive. We even get some insights on urban planning: Bulliet also traces how the difference in European and Middle Eastern cities can be traced to the difference in transportation, with the narrow lanes of some Arab cities (such as Fes in Morocco) being possible in a camel society, while cart-using populations needed broader ways.
The Camel and the Wheel is a work of scholarship with exhaustive citations, but Bulliet writes in a clear, friendly style that makes this book accessible to any general reader with an interest in history. The book is abundantly illustrated with found artifacts representing camels, reproductions of medieval manuscripts showing the animals, and photographs of camel riders of the early 20th century.
The first area that Bulliet explores is the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. He attempts to track the history of the domestication of the one-humped camel, noting that camel-breeding populations in the Horn of Africa only milk camels or use them as pack animals, rarely riding them, and this may have been their initial purpose. The key development in the replacement of the wheel, he claims, was the invention of the North Arabian saddle. This made it possible to successfully use the camel in a military context, which in turn allowed camel-breeding populations to gain control of the Arabian spice trade, and once they held such power, other populations emulated them.
In Iran, the situation is more complex, as there the two-humped camel was originally used. Searching for traces of its domestication takes the author far afield into Central Asia and China. However, use of camels, while very ancient, never completely marginalized wheeled transportation until after the Islamic invasion.
In his afterword, Bulliet notes that in spite of the modern association of the camel with backwardness, to contemporary inhabitants of the Middle East the transition to the camel would have been seen as a technical advance in many respects. As Roman roads were no longer maintained as the Roman Empire collapsed, the camel’s ability to traverse road-less terrain would have been a great advantage. The inability of some parts of the Greco-Roman world to adopt better harness technology for horse-drawn carts also contributed to the wheel’s sidelining.
The author’s ability, in exploring the replacement of the wheel, to take on other sciences outside a narrow view of Islamic history, such as zoology and animal breeding, is quite impressive. We even get some insights on urban planning: Bulliet also traces how the difference in European and Middle Eastern cities can be traced to the difference in transportation, with the narrow lanes of some Arab cities (such as Fes in Morocco) being possible in a camel society, while cart-using populations needed broader ways.
The Camel and the Wheel is a work of scholarship with exhaustive citations, but Bulliet writes in a clear, friendly style that makes this book accessible to any general reader with an interest in history. The book is abundantly illustrated with found artifacts representing camels, reproductions of medieval manuscripts showing the animals, and photographs of camel riders of the early 20th century.
September 21, 2018
Over 20 years ago, I had the great good fortune of being one of Dr. Bulliet's graduate students. I enjoyed and benefitted from all of my classes, but his were the most eye-opening and thought provoking. While taking a survey course taught by him, I read with extreme enthusiasm, The Camel and the Wheel. In it; Dr. Bulliet combines his great understanding of the sciences and Islamic history to tell an unique and enjoyable story of the history of transportation in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. I have returned to The Camel and the Wheel many times over the years, not to learn about cart assembly, but to remind me to analyze situations in more detail before planning a corrective measures. This book helps you to realize that the obvious answer is not always the correct answer. Additionally, it teaches us that the more disciplines added to analysis, the more comprehensive explanation can be constructed.
January 2, 2019
উটের সাথে চাকার বিপ্রতীপ সম্পর্ক নিয়ে লেখা বই। বেশ চিত্তাকর্ষক সব অংশ আছে, কিন্তু বুলিয়েটের লেখার ধরনটা মোটের ওপর অগোছালো। ঊষর এলাকা নিয়ে প্রাকতাপগতিবিদ্যা-যুগের গল্প যদি কেউ লিখতে চান, পড়লে উপকৃত হবেন।
June 5, 2016
Interesting work on the history of the Camel and how it supplanted the use of wheeled transport (i.e. animal-drawn carts, even things like the wheelbarrow) in the Middle East from just before the Early Islamic period. It's an interesting argument; the wheel is often presented as an integral innovation to civilization and much is made of the fact that wheels weren't used in pre-Columbine America, but this argument would suggest that alternatives, hardy animals that don't need paved roadways and can travel long distances with little fodder and water in arid conditions, are just as good. It contributes to the perennial debate on why Islamic cities are often not rectilinear in design (there's no need for straight wide roads, if there are no carts/wagons). There are two interesting chapters that end the work; one on failed attempts to acclimatize camels to other environments (Europe, America, most successfully in Australia where there is currently a substantial population of feral camels descended from domesticated ancestors), the reason of their failure being that there was never a sustained use of camel breeding expertise; and another making the surprising suggestion that camels should be bred for their meat as they efficiently convert feed into bodymass (partly through recycling urea).
April 24, 2025
“Traditional wisdom holds the wheel to be one of mankind’s cleverest inventions, and the camel to be one of God’s clumsiest . . .”
Richard W. Bulliet, a historian of the Islamic period, sets out in this book to resolve a paradox that most people aren’t even aware of: after thousands of years using the wheel, sometime in the fourth or fifth century (in any case, well before the rise of Islam) wheeled vehicles entirely disappear from North Africa to the border of India, not to return until the incursions of Western imperialism in the nineteenth century (and not fully until the invention of the truck.)
The first chapter of the book documents this claim and offers a solution: the use of the camel as a pack animal was just economically more advantageous than any possible animal-drawn vehicle of the time, in any area where the camel was widely available and suitable to the climate. The remainder of the book explores related questions: why were wheeled vehicles replaced when they were, rather than much earlier or much later; why was the replacement so total, rather than wheeled vehicles and camels coexisting for different purposes; why did replacement not take place in India and Central Asia, in the range of the Bactrian (two-humped) camel, etc.
In the course of discussing these questions, Bulliet gives a fairly comprehensive account of the first domestication of the dromedary (one-humped) camel in Southern Arabia, the evolution of various types of saddles, the use of camel caravans in the incense trade, the spread of the camel north into Northern Arabia, Northern Africa, Mesopotamia and Iran, the relations between the nomads and settled areas in different times and places, the differences between the dromedary and the Bactrian camel, the effects of the rise and spread of Islam on camel distribution, and many other topics.
He explicitly insists that the cultural attitudes, religious and otherwise, towards camels and wheeled vehicles were derived from the material, economic realities rather than the other way around. One of the most interesting chapters details the differences in city planning between wheeled and non-wheeled societies.
Richard W. Bulliet, a historian of the Islamic period, sets out in this book to resolve a paradox that most people aren’t even aware of: after thousands of years using the wheel, sometime in the fourth or fifth century (in any case, well before the rise of Islam) wheeled vehicles entirely disappear from North Africa to the border of India, not to return until the incursions of Western imperialism in the nineteenth century (and not fully until the invention of the truck.)
The first chapter of the book documents this claim and offers a solution: the use of the camel as a pack animal was just economically more advantageous than any possible animal-drawn vehicle of the time, in any area where the camel was widely available and suitable to the climate. The remainder of the book explores related questions: why were wheeled vehicles replaced when they were, rather than much earlier or much later; why was the replacement so total, rather than wheeled vehicles and camels coexisting for different purposes; why did replacement not take place in India and Central Asia, in the range of the Bactrian (two-humped) camel, etc.
In the course of discussing these questions, Bulliet gives a fairly comprehensive account of the first domestication of the dromedary (one-humped) camel in Southern Arabia, the evolution of various types of saddles, the use of camel caravans in the incense trade, the spread of the camel north into Northern Arabia, Northern Africa, Mesopotamia and Iran, the relations between the nomads and settled areas in different times and places, the differences between the dromedary and the Bactrian camel, the effects of the rise and spread of Islam on camel distribution, and many other topics.
He explicitly insists that the cultural attitudes, religious and otherwise, towards camels and wheeled vehicles were derived from the material, economic realities rather than the other way around. One of the most interesting chapters details the differences in city planning between wheeled and non-wheeled societies.
November 24, 2025
Truly inventive for its time, I love how this book pioneered a new idea. It also gave me something to talk about with the engineers in my family!
July 6, 2024
Main idea is that there was a post-Roman replacement of the road/wheeled vehicle with the camel caravan across North Africa and West Asia (of course tied with the spread of Islam and of Arab camel culture). Lots of interesting information to appreciate and a unique angle into a period of history usually dominated by conventional narratives. Gets a little disorganized by the end. There's also a few glimpses of racial essentialism about the 'native peoples' of various lands.
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February 22, 2021i am mostafa aglan archieology from egypt i need one pdf from this book please send me on this email mostafaaglan.ma89@gmail.com
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews