Bernard Lewis charts the history of the middle east over the last 2,000 yaers.

The Middle East goes up to 1995 and is a good start, I think, for reading about the middle east. Since it covers a large area and many years it doesn't go into much detail about specific areas, but gives the overall view of what was happening.

On thing that he does well is to express an earlier world view that formed as Islam advanced from the Middle East to Africa and part of Spain, feeling that they were the culmination of religion - Mohammed being the last of the prophets in thier view, and their success in conquest being attributed to the rightness of their cause. Though they studied their own history, the history of the western world was not seen as being of value. In the 1800 and 1900 hundreds, then, when they met with military reversals, it was a shock that led to a deeper questioning of their own purpose. The earlier view is easy to empathize with in the U.S., because, whatever we think of the uses made now of U.S. power, it is very much ingrained in us that the U.S. is one of, if not the most powerful, at the moment. U.S. power may be declining, and, if it becomes clear, that it is, I think that will be a shock. Bernard talks about the response to that, from attempts to establish democracy, to rejection of the west and turning to Islamic fundamentalism.

There is a section towards the end where he talks about the question of whether the middle east was better off for its contact with western imperialism. He concludes that general life conditions are better, although he says the positive effects were more where the colonial power was actively involved in administration such as in India. This is a statement that I simply don't know enough to evaluate, though I have doubts, certainly, as a general statement about colonialism.

There is very little about the position or role of women, although the former is covered generally, as earlier being restrictive though with some legal rights not available to European women at the time, to some loosening with modernization, and increasing restriction with the turn to Islamic fundamentalism in some places. This is a topic, though, where the specifics would be helpful, with more on areas with different prior cultures, or among various social classes, or branches of Islam. ( )

This book is fairly dense, but if your goal is to absorb lots of information about how the middle east got where it is (circa mid-1990s), this is a decent start.

It's somewhat slow going just because of the density of information, but I was able to follow the progression without having to refer to previous pages *too* much. The writing style is succinct but not devoid of a few pleasant flourishes, overall quite readable. ( )