The Arabs

I just ordered Eugene Rogan's The Arabs. I love those sweeping history books on the history of the Arabs. But I am critical, as you know by now. I remember when Albert Hourani was spending time at Dartmouth one semester, and he came down to Georgetown and told us about his plans for an upcoming book on the history of the Arabs. I was most excited: especially that he told us about the failings--in his eyes--of Philip Hitti's History of the Arabs. He was right in pointing out that Hitti merely considered the Ottoman Empire to be the "dark ages", unworthy of investigation for Hitti. But when Hourani's book came out, I was most disappointed. It is probably the least impressive book by Hourani. He has nothing new and it is not as well-written as Hitti's, for sure. The book seems rushed and even casually assembled together. Even the bibliography was hastily collected together, I felt, and the massive work of Abu Al-Faraj Al-Asfahani was not correctly identified, I remember. Personally, I prefer Ira Lapidus's A History of Islamic Societies. It is more like an encyclopedia and I realized that it is considered torturous by students but there is so much work in that book, and I enjoy reading it. But it does not cohere thematically, I admit. There is a short book on the Arabs by my favorite Orientalist, Maxime Rodinson, and another one (larger) by Jacques Berque (the Arabs: their history and future). And don't forget the book by Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples. I remember that the man who introduced the book to me when I was in college (it was the intensely eccentric Palestinian anarchist, George Jad`, who had an influence on our small radical group back then) told me about it: it is historical materialism without the knowledge of the author. But personally, I really like Philip Hitti's, with all its flaws, methodologically and politically. I love reading and re-reading that book. I recommend that book to everyone. I mean the combination of details and sweeping conclusion reminds one of Braudel. There is a scene in that book about life during the Abbasid time and he descibes what they served in those lavish dinner. I remember when dinner guests once wondered why the fish on their plates seemed small, unlike the lavishness of food in those banquets, only to be told that they were being served the tongues of rare fish. I can go on and on. Let me confess to an unPC hobby: I really enjoy reading the works of classical Orientalists. The erudition, knowledge, language skills, meticulousness, originality, and scope of research are a delight to the reader. Of course, this is no place to go over the obvious political and methodological problems of Orientalists. But between reading, say Fouad Ajami or post-1970 Bernard Lewis or Elie Kedourie or Efraim Karsh and any classical Orientalist, I take a classical Orientalist ANY DAY of the week.