Middle East Patterns

Abstract

Widely regarded as the most comprehensive, authoritative, and geographical study of the region, Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics has evolved dexterously into a fourth edition that embraces such diverse themes as archaeology and military capabilities, ethnolinguistic features and agricultural developments, and future implications for relations both within and without the region. The additional 221 illustrations – comprising maps exclusively hand-drawn for the publication as well as images contributed by the author and tables that elucidate the text through their scrupulous cogency – jointly advance the author’s objective to enhance the reader’s knowledge of the region through a review of the Middle East’s natural and cultural patterns and their impact upon political and economic developments. Transcending the conflicts that have made the region a permanent fixture of the world’s media, Held presents an enlightening evaluation of the interaction between the region’s people and biophysical phenomena in the context of spatial and historical processes over time. Introducing the region’s historical and geographical foundations through eight chapters, “Part One: Physical and Cultural Geography” examines the environment, the historico-political evolution of the power cores, and the spatial interaction between the geographical areas and the political events in a region that encompasses “ancient cultures in new states – old wine in new bottles” (p. 219). Located in an area of geographical wonders that range from the planet’s lowest body of water body (1,310 ft. below sea level) to extreme weather conditions that witnessed a locale southwest of the Dead Sea receive its average total annual rainfall in a one-hour downpour during December 2003, the environment has not escaped the consequences of political discord ...