Middle East Books

this book is a remarkable product of great illustrations and well written, most interesting recipies. I always try to find a good copy as a gift !!

OK, I admit. I'm biased. I illustrated the book and appended some annotations to the artworks. Still, I have prepared dishes from the book and have had the pleasure of eating many others. How to review a cookbook? Well, the recipes produce wonderful meals and the illustrations are SUPERB; not your typical halved heads of red cabbage, but imaginative culturally related imagery. I took some pains in researching my chosen images and I think any home kitchen chef will be able to appreciate the additional dimension contributed by the illustrations.

The Middle Eastern Kitchen isn't your usual Middle Eastern cookbook: it offers a narrowed focus on more than 75 ingredients used in the cuisines of Iran, Turkey, Oman, Saudi Arabia and others, discusses shared culinary traditions, and packs in over a hundred recipes based on knowledge and use of these key unique ingredients. Add special photos by Jonathan Basan and you have a presentation piece which goes way beyond most generic Middle Eastern cookbooks.

I am the happy owner of three cookbooks written by Ghillie Basan: Modern Moroccan (which I have owned for quite a while now), Classic Turkish Cooking (which I bought more recently) and, since January, this gem: The Middle Eastern Kitchen. Imagine my joy when I found out last December that Ghillie has more cookbooks coming out!

The outline for this book is rather unusual for a cookbook: each ingredient has its own chapter. Each chapter is packed with information on the particular ingredient (how it grows, appearance and taste, buying and storing, manufacturing, medicinal uses, culinary uses --- if relevant for the ingredient). And then there are 2 or 3 great recipes using the ingredient.

The ingredients covered in the book are signature ingredients for the Middle Eastern cuisine, from the more common (yogurt, cheese, chicken, fig, date, cherry, chickpeas, rice, almonds, cinnamon, coriander, bay leaf, thyme, onion, garlic, spinach, just to name a few) to the more obscure (for instance sheep's tail fat, quince, carob, nigella, mastic, sumac, melokhia).

The recipes Ghillie has to offer are amazingly good (as usual). The bold flavors of the Middle Eastern cuisine are really done justice. If you like flavorful food, I can highly recommend this book --- the recipes are straightforward, but the results are amazing.

Mideast & Mediterranean Cuisines Every page in this cookbook has something interesting. The introduction contains history and description of the different cuisines of the Mideast and Meidterranean spheres. These are, according to the author, Persian (Iranian); Arab (including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and the Arabain Peninsula; Near East (including Turkey, Armenia, and Greece); North African (including Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco; and Israeli.

The glossary of food items intrigues me with little items about such foods as couscous, grape leaves, hummus, and feta.

Usually we pick up cookbooks and look for something we'd like to cook. I cannot find anything in this book I don't want to cook.

This book is a rare treasure. On Amazon there are a few used ones. I thank the relative who gave me a copy!

Mideast & Mediterranean Cuisines is a singularly outstanding collection of recipes that will turn any dining occasion into an exotic gourmet feast. From Pomegranate-Lentil Soup, Greek Holiday Bread, and Filo Triangles, to Grilled Spicy Calves' Liver, Egyptian Rice, and Pistachio Baklava, every mouth-watering recipe is "kitchen cook friendly" and offers both novelty and delectable nutrition that will be much appreciated by everyone at the table.

This is one of the very few books I have even seen that specializes in ancient Assyria(most of the time it is just mentioned in Ancient Mesopotamian books) which is a shame since it is such a fascinating topic. This book will be hard to match in thoroughness, and readability (especially in this topic which I think is less than the most popular in modern society). This was the second of Saggs books I read(after Babylonians I went on to read Greece and Rome at War after this one). I find the ancient near east fascinating and Saggs is definitely an expert in the field. In addition to being an expert, he does what some expert authors fail to do: he writes in an interesting fashion that keeps readers reading and enjoying what they read. I just have one minor complaint, and that is that once or twice he seems to treat ancient religion somewhat casually, with what some may feel is less than proper respect. Few if any modern readers will be offended if Assyrian religion is treated casually or with little respect(which seldom happens although I seem to recall a part where he calls certain Assyrian incantations "mumbo-jumbo"), but one small quote at the beginning of chapter 9 stating that the Israelite belief that they had an exclusive treaty with their god was "very dubious"(which I understand to be a major doctrinal point of Judaism and Christianity,and perhaps Islam) could possibly offend some of the more sensitive readers. I wasn't offended but felt that comments relating to religion(especially modern religion) could be given a little more carefully. Anyway I felt that was a very minor transgression in an overall great and thorough read. So this book still definitely deserves 5 stars.

Every once in a while I come across a book that surprises me with it excellence; this is one of those books. Professor Saggs (Professor of Semitic Languages, University College, Cardiff) begins this book with an in-depth history of Assyria, from pre-history through the rise of empire, and the final fall. Part 2 of the book is an encyclopedic look at the Assyrians themselves, covering everything from customs and daily life, through religion, medicine, art, warfare and literature. The final chapter is a look at the "rediscovery" of Assyria by Western archaeologists.

Now, what I hoped to express in the description above is that this book attempts to cover everything that was known about the Assyrians in 1984 (when the book was published), and this is does admirably. That is to say, though its reach is broad its grasp is surprisingly deep. Plus, in spite of the age of the book, it has held up very well, giving the reader a good understanding of the Assyrians. Also, though written as a textbook, this book is highly readable and very useful for the non-academic as well.

So, if you are interested in the ancient Assyrians, then I can recommend no resource more than this veritable work of art. I found this book extremely informative, and give it my highest recommendation.

It is hard to imagine how transient and fleeting our civilization is. A hundred years has seen a shift from the Sand Creek massacre, where Christian priests were scalping Native American women and children to nominal civilization with universal suffrage. A thousand years ago Europe itself was in Dark Ages of barbarism and chaos. A modern day European has no connection to the Langobards, Alemani, Thracians and Visigoths. In contrast, the ancient Egyptians had known three thousand years of relative continuity and self-identity so that the people born in the New Kingdom could identify themselves with the texts, narratives and beliefs from the Middle and the Old. What made possible this amazing continuity? Who were these people and how did they look at life? Jan Assman, a Heidelberg University professor and one of the most eminent Egyptologists of our time has written a superb book on this topic, a book that addresses key elements of time, memory, free will and historical continuity that are ever so relevant today. I found it difficult to put down.

According to Assman, life for the ancient Egyptian was a fellowship, a connectedness. This connectedness was maintained by harmony and justice (ma'at) a key organizing principle that can perhaps be regarded as the Egyptian version of Tao or perhaps the Navajo idea of `hozho'. Harmony makes community possible and is synonymous with law, security and order set by a centralized state. The failure to realize this interconnection of life results in loneliness and death. Maat is ensured by the State: all common, shared things, depend on the state: language, knowledge, and memory.
The Egyptian state was founded on an unshakable faith in the immortality of the soul and the prospect of future judgment. Interestingly, these ideas are also central to Christianity, but not the Old Testament (a tribal document devoid of the concept of life after death or notions such as kindness, or lovingness).

The Egyptians identified covetousness, greed, as the source of all evil. Keeping greed in check required constant effort. The great countergod of the E. pantheon, Seth is:

"He who is content with separation and hates fraternization;
he who only supports himself on his [own] heart among the gods"

very modern, this guy Seth. Would feel very comfortable in Wal-Mart or NYSE. Or the blood diamond merchants of Antwerp. There is great sophistication in using language and thinking in Middle Kingdom, when we observe a universal political education, indoctrination and propaganda. Religion itself required a great mnemonic effort on the part of the pharaoh and the priests; including ritual practices that we might call magic, as thoughts and dreams were very real to E. - so real, that evil in the sphere of language and imagination is given greater prominence than bad deeds; figurines found in pots made of burnt clay had inscribed curses against:

"All bad words, all bad speech, all bad imprecation,
all bad thoughts, all bad plotting
all bad battle, all bad plans, all bad things,
all bad dreams, all bad sleep."

Assmann emphasizes that human equality is a fundamental principle of Egyptian society. Unlike the Vedic Indians with their castes, and the Greeks with their free citizens and slaves, the Egyptians did not see existing differences between rich and poor, strong and weak, as part of the creation... "I have made each man the same as his neighbor", says Amon Ra, the sun god. The king is advised to `appoint his officials solely on the criterion of ability'. Inequality was seen as a product of covetousness, the "greed of the heart". Hardheartedness, selfishness and megalomania were universally condemned. These differences are traced back to the "heart" -to human free will. In fact, the idea of a "heart-guided individual"is central the Middle Kingdom.

Assman is ever so careful to evade a (self-imposed) 'hermeneutical trap', avoiding any temptation to actually 'feel' what Egyptians themselves might have felt or experienced. Conequently, while the book has many fascinating pages, it lacks a certain depth that could only come from the author's 'tuning in' into phenomenology of subjects he has devoted his life to studying.

Anyway, I liked the chapters on the two Transitional Periods, and the descriptions of the Hyksos (who, according to Assman were related to the Jews), the Nubians and even references from the Greeks; what I missed was more information of the Assyrian and Persian conquest and more information about the Egyptian religion. Here are "Instructions for King Merikare":

"Beware of unjust punishment.
Kill not, for that cannot be useful to you.
Punish with beatings and prison:
By this the land will be well founded. [...]
Kill no one whose spiritual strength is known to you
With whom you have sung scriptures
Who has read in the book of trial and can walk freely in the sacred space.
For the soul returns to the place it knows.
No magic can hold it back
It reaches him who gives it water.

This book attempts to reconstruct the ancient mind set of the Egyptians, in so far as possible, and relate it to our own. Assmann writes "ancient Egypt is an intellectual and spiritual world that is linked to our own by numerous strands of tradition." He discusses, for example, the influences of works such as "The Admonitions of Ipuwer" [13th cent.BC]on Bertold Brecht who used parts of it in his play "The Caucasian Chalk Circle". He explains the most important Egyptian philosophical concept "ma'at" or "connective justice" (illustrated in "The Eloquent Peasant" a Middle Kingdom work but holding "for Egyptian civilization in general" in terms of the ideas of both Karl Marx and Nietzsche.
Most importantly he shows what the Egyptian state really stood for as opposed to the false images found in Old Testament propaganda that mispresents Eqypt as an oppressive slave state. "The Egyptian state." he says, "is the implementation of a legal order that precludes the natural supremacy of the strong and opens up prospects for the weak (the 'widows' and 'orphans') that otherwise would not exist."
Unlike many who think that the revolution initiated by Akhenaten perished with him, Assmann presents evidence that its main principles survived in other religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as well in secular venues from Greek philosophy "to the universalist formulas of oun own age as embodied in the physics of Einstein and Heisenberg."
It is possible that many of the ideas of "Christianity" were originally formulated by the Egyptians.
Today we know more about the Ancient Egyptians than ever before so we should "attempt to enter into a dialogue with the newly readable messages of ancient Egyptian culture and thus to reestablish them as an integral part of our cultural memory."
I have only skimmed the surface of this important book. Anyone who wants to understand ancient Egypt must read this book."

This book is an in depth account of middle eastern minorities betrayed by European colonizers. Very relevant to today's problems in the Middle East.

By Bat Yeor

To the average observer, the Middle East appears to be a homogeneous,
gigantic Arab-Muslim continent. Under this heavy blanket of uniformity,
however, the remnants of colonized, extinguished nations, crushed and
dispossessed by imperialism, survive in pain and anguish. These peoples -
Kurds, Alawites, Copts, Jews, and others - have withstood jihad, genocides,
persecutions, and continual sociopolitical repression. Yet their hearts
still beat, inspired by the hope of freedom and survival.
It is their history that Mordechai Nisan tells, combining clear scholarship
with a perspicacious sensibility. Who are these peoples? In his subtle
analysis, Nisan demonstrates that they represent diverse ethnic groups, with
unique historical experiences. The author constructs a fascinating mosaic of
peoples, beliefs, and intertwined histories. This work expands upon a 1991
study, with much new material.
Nisan begins by specifying the characteristics these people share in their
diversity. What inner forces of cohesion shaped their resistance to the Arab
and Islamic onslaught on their lands and civilizations from East Persia to
North Africa? The factors promoting survival are neither fixed nor stable.
Throughout the political dynamism of historical events, each of these
peoples has preserved a collective self-consciousness that spans millennia.
"The crux of a minority struggle," writes Nisan, "often revolved around the
ability to define identity from within as a matter of group
self-articulation, and not be the victims of a superimposed identity from
without." Crushed by cultural and religious Arab-Islamic imperialism, the
group's identity and cohesion is a testimony to its indigenous uniqueness.
But can this human and cultural diversity of the Middle East survive after
millennia of hardship, unforeseen challenges, and resistance?
One discovers, for instance, beneath the uniformity of Arabism a
substructure of living, resistant, minority peoples cultivating their
pre-Arab and pre-Islamic native languages, cultures, and religions. Nisan
organizes the groups into four main categories: (1) the Islamized peoples
who resisted Arab/Muslim colonialism and kept their own culture and
languages, like the Kurds (Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey), the Berbers (Algeria,
Tunisia, Morocco), and the Baluch (Pakistan); (2) the heterodox Muslim
minorities who were Arabized but resisted Islamization by keeping their
ancestral beliefs and customs under a Muslim veneer, like the Druzes
(Levant) and the Alawites (Syria); (3) the Christian minorities: Armenians,
Assyrians, Copts, Maronites, and Sudanese; and (4) the Jews, the only
minority who succeeded in liberating a part of their historical land from
Arab-Islamic imperialism.
Nisan describes the rich history of each group and the inevitable tensions
that accompany cultural, linguistic, and religious resistance to
Islamization. Their histories include the difficulties entailed in
maintaining the history and culture of the group, the processes of survival
they adopted, the modalities of adaptation, and the compromises employed to
save a modicum of freedom without disappearing. This analytical survey
carries us through several levels of understanding, from the policy of
conquest and domination that included spoliation, slavery, deportation, and
genocide to the various mechanisms of survival adopted by each crushed,
humiliated, oppressed, or tolerated community. Not every group developed the
same self-consciousness of its history, culture, and ethnic characteristics,
but all resisted.
The political and social tensions highlighted by Nisan are most urgent and
topical for the West. In our age of multiculturalism, which has seen the
recent development in the West of large immigrant communities, what does
integration mean? Can some groups integrate more easily than others? Can
integration succeed when fundamental values clash? Nisan's sober and
scholarly analysis of the conflict between territorial ethnicity and
religious imperialism is of great relevance to the West.
In history, chance is a fugitive fairy that rarely passes twice. The light
of freedom sparkled for the oppressed Christian minorities in the Middle
East after World War I. It was quickly extinguished by France and Britain in
their eagerness to appease Muslim hostility in their Arab colonial
dominions. Sacrificed were the legitimate aspirations of the Armenians,
Kurds, Assyrians, and Copts.
Their ancestral homelands were arbitrarily lumped into enormous Arab-Islamic
entities, while concessions to Islamic demands violated their rights. Some,
like the Armenians, Assyrians, and Jacobites, were simply abandoned to
bloody reprisals, while the promises they had been given were broken. Only
the Maronites and the Jews were given a chance; even for these, it was a
delusion and a snare. British pro-Arab policy in the 1930s in Palestine, the

gestation of the Shoah in Europe, and the closure of all routes of escape
for the Jews at the Evian Conference in 1938 seemed to have delivered the
last blow to the Zionist dream of national liberation. The Maronites had to
wait a generation to experience the bitterness of world abandonment and the
betrayal of their friends. Hence, among all the dhimmi peoples, only Israel
survived the lethal Euro-Arab alliance against the indigenous Middle Eastern
minorities.
This history of blood, hope, and massacres that Nisan recalls in a masterly
way is not over. The martyrdom perpetrated on the Lebanese Christians by the
Palestinians and their Muslim allies, generalized jihad, the slavery and
butchery inflicted on the rebellious non-Muslim Sudanese populations, the
oppression of the Copts and the Assyrians, the massacres of the Kurds, the
negation of the Berber's cultural rights, the jihad Intifada against Israel
- all are ignored or explained away by European governments and the media.
Do these ancient and courageous peoples still have a chance to deliver
themselves from the shackle of dhimmitude, and the manipulations of Eurabia
? Now that a new Middle East is
being projected, in spite of old Europe's lethal alliance with the most
repressive regimes, maybe the good-luck fairy will pass a second time, to
console and redress the cynical injustice inflicted on vulnerable and
martyred peoples. Nisan's book is invaluable for a fuller understanding of
Middle East history, past and present.
In the mid 19th century, the French Turcophile writer Abdolonyme Ubicini
(translation from The Decline of Eastern Christianity
) described the subjected dhimmis of the
Ottoman Empire - Christians and Jews - awaiting liberation despite centuries
of oppression:
The history of enslaved peoples is the same everywhere, or rather,
they have no history. The years, the centuries pass without bringing any
change to their situation. Generations come and go in silence. One might
think they are afraid to awaken their masters, asleep alongside them.
However, if you examine them closely you discover that this immobility is
only superficial. A silent and constant agitation grips them. Life has
entirely withdrawn into the heart. They resemble those rivers which have
disappeared underground: if you put your ear to the earth, you can hear the
muffled sound of their waters; then they emerge intact a few leagues away.
Such is the state of the Christian populations of Turkey under Ottoman rule.
Will his observations prove relevant today for the Christian and other
ethnic minorities of the Arab-Muslim dominions?
- Bat Yeor is the author of three books on jihad
and dhimmitude. Her latest study Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations
Collide

Any studying Middle East history or culture, particularly those at the college level, will find the weighty 560-page MIRAGE: POWER, POLITICS, AND THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ARABIAN OIL to be a methodical and important survey of the discovery, development and use of Middle Eastern oil. From the history of discoveries and the reasons reserves in some countries went untapped for decades to the role of one New Zealander Frank Holmes in discovering and revealing these new sources, MIRAGE delves into the background and uses the author's original research from archives around the world in its in-depth revelation - which even includes maps, photos, and a 'who's who' of key people. An in-depth, essential pick for any collection solid in Middle Eastern studies and issues.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book is written by an Australian international journalist now associated with the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra. Thus Dr. Keating can be free of the political arguments currently going on in the US between the pro and anti Bush factions.

The title comes from the deliberate obscuring of the fact that the Arab areas of the Persion Gulf were virtual outposts of the British rule in India. This was not a happy situation for the people in the gulf and set the stage for the dramatic changes that were to come as the Americans came to the gulf and eventually superceeded the British interests.

At the end of World War I, when this books story begins, it was generally believed by the experts that there was no oil in Arabia. The book basically ends with President Roosevelt's statement in 1943 that 'I hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defence of the United States.'

In the twenty years between these two dates, there is a story of ambition, intrigue, folly, drama, conflict and even some comic interludes. None the less, this was the time that set the stage for the remainder of the century and for the future years. Here is the foundation for what is going on in that part of the gulf now.

The book is extensively researched, and written so well that the otherwise dull history is made very readable and interesting.

I don't wont to be qualified as an "extremist fan" of Mahfouz, but I repeat myself: this is one of the most interesting and human book I ever read. The style chosen by Mahfouz is absolutely fascinating: a series of most appealing or repulsing people - both men and women - pass before our very eyes led by the voice of an anonimous character. Of course, one firstly suppose that the latter is none other than Mahfouz himself and that the other people are actual persons whom he met along his life, since the narrative is presented as flowing evocative occurrences, some having a sort of continuation along the play, others not. Some critics have denied that this work should be defined as a "novel", but an attentive reading and evaluation certainly dispels such a pretension. It is not only a "novel", but an extraordinary one, through which one can get closer to the mind, ways and heart of the Egyptian modern people. The Arabic original was published in 1972 and this was Mahfouz's first work after the "disaster" of 1967. Therefore, even the title is evocative of the psychological conditions of the Egyptian society at the time: like a mirror reflecting a succession of images, as a lot of fragments after a shock. The life of all those around the teller is simply sketched out, but one becomes familiar with each one of them, perhaps because, as it is usual in Mahfouz, he has touched upon the chords of the human heart.

Here is a work with the omniscience of genius, but none of the arrogance. A great writer's puppet show, with invisible strings. Naguib Mahfouz, who is undeniably a great writer, has written a novel that feels like a documentary so rich and detailed, it could never be documented by a person without having his/her personality color the facts to suit their particular agenda. So Mahfouz's Mirrors is a sprawling story told by an anonymous narrator who never bothers to introduce himself and never volunteers his religious or political beliefs. It is not told in chronological chapters, but seemingly random accounts of characters the narrator has met in his lifetime. At first glance, Mahfouz seems to have accomplished what is physically impossible; a mosaic of parallel lines. But what I think is the ultimate message of Mirrors is that, within a given society, no life ever progresses in parallel to the next. But its not that simple.

The first character, Dr.Ibrahim Aqul casts a long shadow over the others. As a post graduate student he had submitted a thesis that was perceived to be anti-Religion, and was attacked by the country's right wing as an atheist. Rather then stand up to public outrage and defend his beliefs, he recoils and denies the accusations. The narrator's first encounter with him was as his Literature student in the 1930s where Dr.Aqul, who had survived the controversy and taken a comfortable job, was the most despised member of the university's faculty. The hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, who understood and/or questioned the government and religion, yet conformed for the sake of their financial security, would seem to be Mahfouz's target here. But Dr.Aqul reappears as a supporting player in the lives of other people, the reader's impression of him changes as other characters weigh in with their opinion of him. Maybe the message here, is that one person's impression of a man could never encompass who that man really was. There are many ways to interpret a man's actions, more still to guess his motives. But I'm afraid it was never going to be that simple.

The narrator never marries, but he does share two heartwarming tales of childish love of neighborhood girls he had never met face to face, and two heartbreaking, sordid affairs he had with two emotionally scarred and married women. His romantic idealism as a youngster mirrored that of a nation that fought tooth and nail against British colonialism. His loveless affairs and his surrender of idealism mirrored a broken nation, whose new rulers, the revolutionary forces that overthrew the corrupt monarchy and forced the British out, followed the example of Pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm and became more autocratic, brutal and unforgiving then their predecessors ever were.

Another buried theme in Mirrors is the emancipation of Egyptian women in the face of an often restrictive culture. There is the Madam who controlled many of old Cairo's bordellos, the illiterate housewife who accepts an acting job, the student who turned heads in a 1930s Egyptian university with her provocative clothes and her strong will and many many more. Yet Mirrors could never be pinned down to just that. The narrator is so subjective, so non-judgmental that he often appears bland, and therefore trustworthy.

The structure of Mirrors has a message all its own. As the narrator chooses to summarise his entire experience with a character in just a few pages, we are introduced to a character only to learn of their ultimate fate a few fleeting moments later. Because Time in its "Heaviness, majesty, betrayal, perpetuity and its effect" is mindlessly unjust. Its treats the good and the bad with equal disdain. From those, often shattering, short accounts of a life, there are stark images that once imagined will stay with a reader for a long time. There is the clueless and shocked eight year old narrator standing outside an Alexanderian bordello between to chattering whores, there is the love struck schoolboy who steels a gun and shoots the object of his desire once she rejects him and the beautiful girl standing at the window while an awe struck narrator watches from the street. What finally emerges from the Mirror is a kaleidoscope of sixty years of Egyptian history. It is a country that has often found itself out of the frying pan and into the fire. One that often retains a certain mystery even to people who have lived there their entire lives.

The last character in Mirrors is completely unrelated to all the others, the account, or in this case the memory of her is only two pages long. But its so perfect, so symbolic that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

She's a girl from the narrator's childhood. As a seven-year-old, he would watch her from his window, and this sixteen-year-old girl would jokingly smile back at him. Everytime he tried to get to her house, the maid would catch him and would carry him kicking and screaming back to his house. So one day, when it had rained so heavily that their alleyway was completely flooded. In the pouring rain, he gets into his mother's plastic laundry box, rows past the made with a broomstick and runs upstairs to meet the ethereal beauty that had so moved him. Dripping wet he enters her room. She ruffles his hair, takes his hand and says:"I will read your fortune". And as she held his hand and revealed his destiny, the narrator remembers: "She followed the lines of my hand and read my future, but I had used up all my consciousness staring at her beautiful face". Mirrors is a masterwork. It's as simple as that.

"Misadventure in the Middle East" is a beautifully written, fun and easy read while at the same time being very topical and insightful. Full of funny anecdotes about what the author and his cohorts ran into while spending a year in a pickup truck driving throughout the middle east making art, while at the same time infused with insight and held together with an exciting and constantly developing story line. I read it in a day or two of travel - couldn't put it down. Must reading for anyone interested in the middle east, art or travel. His website's great too - www.henryhemming.com.

bought it after spending 1 month travlling in Iran & was missing the ME vibe. I like his book alot. It is very true & he looks at things objectively- and its funny too. he does so many random things in random polaces & I like that as well. BTW, Iran is the friendliest country i have ever visited- such warm, giving people. And I am even an American.

This book is a gift to read - which may be why I keep ordering additional copies to give as gifts to my friends. The photographs, taken over a twenty-five year journey into the Aranbian desert are combined with exquisite poetry selections that beautifully articulate the visual images. Through the book I've journeyed to a part of the world I'd never seen. Included are pictures of Bedouin men and women, camels, and the most sensuous desert imaginable. A rare book that's a real tour de force.

I stumbled upon this book and could not believe how timely it is. Not only does this lovely photographic book feature beautiful images of sand dunes and people in far away places, accompanied by imaginative poetry, but it shows the side of Arabia that President George Bush and New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, among others, are asking us to remember in light of the difficult times.

We are lucky to have at our fingertips, in a moment of need, an artistic expression of this part of the world to remind us of beauty and not fear.

I intend to share this book with as many people as I can, not only because of the stunning photography and magical poetry, but because I have found solace in its pages.

I proudly display it in my library.