Albert Hourani

Encyclopedic and panoramic in its scope, this fascinating work chronicles the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutions of Arab history through 13 centuries.

History of the Arab Peoples

John Balek

At the end of last year I was reading Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine and kept seeing the name Albert Hourani referenced. It sounded familiar but I wasn't sure where I had heard it. I looked up at my bookshelf to see this book, waiting to be read. Earlier last year I had picked this book up but hadn't thought about it since then, continuing to put it off due to the length and subject matter.

A History of the Arab Peoples is a book with a big goal in mind. Cover 1300 years of history for multiple different current day countries in under 500 pages. This is a big task and I'm not sure it's even possible to fully accomplish. 

When going into this book I was hoping to learn more about the precolonial era of the SWANA region, as I've read multiple books on the current day affairs. I was disappointed to learn that nearly half of this book is on the last 200 years whereas the other half vaguely covers the prior 1100 years.

I get why this was done. The events of the current day are far more volatile and their actions make up more of our current outlook of the Middle East. There's also a lot more information out there about current issues, especially when the author has lived through most of it.

While I wasn't going to get all that I wanted out of this book I continued on as I hoped to learn more about a subject, while previously exposed to, I wasn't an expert on. There's definitely a lot to learn from this book; I learned many things that I hadn't come across in other sources, but the depth of information throughout the book is definitely inconsistent.

Once again, I think it might be an impossible task to cover all of Arab history within 500 pages. Many subjects were briefly discussed or overlooked. For how dense this book is it is a pretty fast paced book. Some subjects that could fill entire chapter or book of its own are only mentioned in a few sentences or paragraphs. There's a lot to cover so it makes sense why this decision was made but it overall lead me to quickly forget most of the information I was exposed to. I am someone who really likes to sit with a subject and learn all of its factors to truly understand its reasoning, which is something I really didn't get out of this book.

Often times I was filling in gaps with information I had learned from other sources. Which makes me wonder what kind of audience this was written for. It feels like it is created to reach those looking to understand Arab culture but it is written in a way that you would have to be Arab or understand elements of Arab culture to easily grasp the subjects discussed. 

A lot of my disappointment with reading this book comes from reading it 30 years after it was published. There is obviously a huge amount of information to cover that has happened since 1991. This is no fault of the book, it's just the curse all print media must face.

Looking at the subjects of this book, especially the more modern ones, with the hindsight of 2021 it feels like a lot is missing. so much has happened since 1991 that a lot of these issues feel antiquated or we have found answers to some of these issues that I wish could have been covered here. Its unfortunate but I think that is the curse of writing about subjects so recent to the publication of a book. I'm sure most of the contemporary books I read will not have the same impact 30 years from now.

Throughout the book it definitely feels like there is a level of personal choice when it comes to discussing subjects. Whether this is the author, the publisher, or the cultural perspective of the 1991 intended audience some things are highlighted with more detail or care than others.

I'm not sure what the cultural consensus was on subjects like the Nakba or the Armenian Genocide in 1991 but I felt like they were grossly underdiscussed in a book where a lot of 20th century Middle Eastern history was discussed. The Armenian Genocide is mentioned in one sentence and the word "genocide" is never used. The Nakba is given a bit more time but I don't think the severity is really conveyed properly. The fallout of the situation is discussed a lot but the actual event doesn't feel like it is given the proper context to portray why all of these proceeding actions happen. 

Albert Hourani, like me, is of Lebanese decent. I appreciated his highlighting of different Lebanese figures throughout the book, during many different eras. While I didn't learn much about them from this book I did get to build a nice list of figures and events to look up on my own.

Considering I've read A Peace To End All Peace by David Fromkin prior to this I know a book from the 80s/90s can still have a great impact on a modern reader. While the subject matter of A Peace To End All Peace is a lot more focused in its subject matter and longer in its length, I felt like it did a better job covering the post colonial Middle East and how our current world is shaped by it.

In 1991 this might have been on of the better sources to learn about Arab history available but in 2021 there are so many more current books, as well as documentaries and news sources, that can offer you a better understanding. I still learned a lot from this book so I don't want to put it down fully and say it has no current value but I think you could find better options nowadays.

Reidar Hagtvedt

Ezra Alie

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.

History of the Arab Peoples

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