A Concise History of the Middle East

500 ••• Bibliographie Essay

Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge: Cam¬
bridge University Press, 1988). The Middle East Network Information Center at
the University of Texas has a highly articulate Web site that contains information
on specific countries and the various societies and cultures of the area, links to
daily newspapers, and specific sections on the Israel-Palestinian Conflict and 9/11
at menic.utexas.edu. Its link to the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection
makes it a major source for geographers as well as historians. North Park Univer¬
sity's History Department has a World History Chronology that covers Islam and
the Middle East extensively with links to brief narrative passages, original sources
in translation, maps, and pictures at campus.northpark.edu/history/webchron.
While writing this book, we relied often on The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.
(Leiden: Brill, 1954-2004), 11 of whose 12 volumes are now on CD-ROM. Also
useful are the Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House,
1972), updated and available on CD-ROM (Shaker Heights, Ohio: Judaica Multi¬
media, 1997), and John Esposito, éd., Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic
World, 4 vols. (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1995). Historical
atlases include David Nicolle, Historical Atlas of the Islamic World (New York:
Checkmark Books, 2003); Ismail R. al-Faruqi and Lois Lami' al-Faruqi, Cultural
Atlas of Islam (New York: Macmillan, 1986); and Francis Robinson, Atlas of the Is¬
lamic World Since 1500 (New York: Facts on File, 1982). For scholarly articles and
chapters in edited volumes, use the Index Islamicus (London: Mansell, 1955-),
preferably in the CD-ROM version, which covers the years from 1906 to 1997. A
few libraries have its annual updates. The printed volumes are cumbersome.

CHAPTER I

Several well-known writers on the Middle East have shared their views on history:
Sir Hamilton Gibb, Studies on the Civilization of Islam, eds. Stanford J. Shaw and
William R. Polk (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962); Albert Hourani, Islam in European
Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); and Bernard Lewis,
History—Remembered, Recovered, Invented (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1975). Recent compendia of the views of Middle East historians include
Nancy E. Gallagher, Approaches to the History of the Middle East (Reading, UK:
Ithaca Press, 1997); and Thomas Naff, éd., Paths to the Middle East: Ten Scholars
Look Back (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
The best introduction to the area's geography remains Stephen H. Longrigg
and James Jankowski, The Middle East: A Social Geography (Chicago: Aldine,
1970). Students should then read Colbert C. Held, Middle East Patterns: Places,
Peoples, and Politics, 3rd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000). The main societies
and cultures of the Middle East are surveyed in Dale Eickelmann, The Middle East
and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: