A History of the Arab Peoples

by Albert Hourani Narrated by Wanda McCaddon

Overview

Despite the turmoil of Arab nationalism and fundamentalism, Middle Eastern wars, and oil crises, the history of the Arab world has been little known and poorly understood in the West. One reason may be that, for more than half a century, there has been no up-to-date single-volume work that chronicles the story of Arab civilization-until now.

Albert Hourani, distinguished historian and interpreter, has written a masterwork, a panoramic view encompassing twelve centuries of Arab history and culture. He looks at all sides of this rich and venerable civilization, including the beauty of the Alhambra and the great mosques, the importance attached to education, the achievements of Arab science-but also internal conflicts, widespread poverty, the role of women, and the contemporary Palestinian question.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2011 - AudioFile

The wonderful Nadia May is her wondrous best in this outstanding production of Hourani’s expansive history of Arab culture, history, and religion. The text is a curative to the general Western ignorance of Islam, its long and troubled history with Western nations and with Christianity and Judaism, and its sense of mission—cultural, historical, and religious—in challenging the West. It is in one volume an entry, like the storybooks of childhood, into a strange and miraculous realm. For all of this, May is the ideal reader. Her unfailing command of pace, nuance, and textual value has an authority that matches Hourani’s own, and listening to this vast reconstruction, which stretches from ancient times into our own, is like hearing History’s own voice, ageless and omniscient, high above the fray. As in her transcendent narrations of works by Barbara Tuchman, May validates here the claim of the audiobook not just to stand shoulder to shoulder with the text—but like theater or film—to stand apart as a unique genre and interpretation. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169897739
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	06/30/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos