A consice introduction to the modern Arab world, this book draws on the author's experience as both a historian and journalist in the Middle East. The social, political and historical aspects of the area - the pre-Islamic nomads of Arabia, the life of Muhammad and the rise of Arab power that followed, to the Western colonial period, the tragedy of Palestine and the modern Arab renaissance, reinforced by the power of oil. He also shows how the consequences of centuries of struggle for dominance between Christendom and the Islamic world survives to this day in various forms. A section of this book surveys the Arab countries in Gazetteer-type fashion and the final section considers the Arabs themselves, their characteristics, aspirations and their future.