In a bestselling work of profound and lasting importance, the late Albert Hourani told the definitive history of the Arab peoples from the seventh century, when the new religion of Islam began to spread from the Arabian peninsula westwards, to the present day. It is a masterly distillation of a lifetime of scholarship and a unique insight into a perpetually troubled region. This updated edition by Malise Ruthven adds a substantial new chapter which includes recent events such as 9/11, the US invasion of Iraq and its bloody aftermath, the fall of the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and the incipient civil war in Syria, bringing Hourani's magisterial history up to date. Ruthven suggests that while Hourani can hardly have been expected to predict in detail the massive upheavals that have shaken the Arab world recently he would not have been entirely surprised, given the persistence of the kin-patronage networks he describes in his book and the challenges now posed to them by a new media-aware generation of dissatisfied youth. In a new biographical preface, Malise Ruthven shows how Hourani's perspectives on Arab history were shaped by his unique background as an English-born Arab Christian with roots in the Levant.

Upon its publication in 1991, Albert Hourani's masterwork was hailed as the definitive story of Arab civilization, and became both a bestseller and an instant classic. In a panoramic view encompassing twelve centuries of Arab history and culture, Hourani brilliantly illuminated the people and events that have fundamentally shaped the Arab world.

Now this seminal book is available in an expanded second edition. Noted Islamic scholar Malise Ruthven brings the story up to date from the mid-1980s, including such events as the Gulf War; civil unrest in Algeria; the change of leadership in Syria, Morocco, and Jordan; and the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001.

The terrorist attacks in the United States, ongoing crisis in Iraq, and renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians all underscore the need for a balanced and well-informed understanding of the Arab world, and make this insightful history of the Arab peoples more important than ever.

This textbook assembles key writings on the modern history of the Middle East by some of the most distinguished specialists in the field. The book aims to meet the needs of a wide range of students. After a general introduction by Albert Hourani, the essays are arranged in four sections: reforming elites and changing relations with Europe 1789-1918; transformation in society and economy 1789-1918; imperialism and nationalism in the interwar period; and the Middle East since World War II. This revised edition contains a range of additional material on the history of the region since the 1990s.

This collection of essays focuses on the relations between European and Islamic thought and culture from the late 18th to the 20th century. The long first essay is concerned with the development of ideas about Islam in European thought and scholarship, showing in particular how the views of 19th-century thinkers and scholars reflected the dominant philosophical and historical ideas of their age. Subsequent chapters are devoted to individual writers who played an important part in forming and communicating an image of Islamic history and civilization: Louis Massignon, H.A.R. Gibb, Marshall Hodgson and Jacques Berque, together with the scholar-soldier T.E. Lawrence. The final three essays look at the subject from the other side, and deal with some of the reactions of the Islamic world to the powerful new ideas of European civilization, including the first Arabic encyclopaedia and the first translation of Homer.

This reissue again makes available Hourani's comprehensive study of the roots of Arab nationalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It focuses on the movement of ideas in two countries, Egypt and Lebanon. The author has written a new preface that puts new emphasis on research and interpretation.