Arabs

Outline

Arabs (2019) tells the three-thousand-year story of the Arab people, from ancient tribes and kingdoms to the rise of great empires and the modern Arab world. Tim Mackintosh-Smith shows how the Arabic language, poetry, and a shared culture have united Arabs across vast distances and centuries. The book offers a rich, sympathetic, and wide-ranging portrait of Arab history and civilisation.

• Arab history stretches across roughly three thousand years, beginning with ancient tribes and kingdoms long before the great empires.
• The book follows the Arab story from early tribal societies through the rise of great empires to the modern Arab world.
• The Arabic language has been a central bond, helping Arabs stay connected across vast distances and many centuries.
• Poetry and a shared culture carried a common identity even where political unity was absent.
• Mackintosh-Smith writes with sympathy, giving a rich and wide-ranging portrait of Arab history and civilisation.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British Arabist, historian, and travel writer who lived in Yemen for many years. He is known for his deep knowledge of Arabic language and culture, and for retracing the journeys of the great Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta. His books include Travels with a Tangerine and Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires.