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Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires
Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires is a 2019 non-fiction book by British author and Arabist Tim Mackintosh-Smith. The book was written over nine years in Sanaa, Yemen, and during the last four years, the author was confined in his neighbourhood due to the eruption of the Yemeni Civil War. Covering the history of Arabs from their first known mention in 853 BCE up to the present, the book uses Arabic language as a unifying factor to tell the story. Arabs was met with dozens of reviews and mentions, the vast majority of them favorable.
Mackintosh-Smith is an Arabist, travel writer and Arabic translator. He is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and an emeritus Senior Fellow of the New York University Library of Arabic Literature. He views himself as a post-Orientalist, a term referring to Palestinian scholar Edward Said's book Orientalism. In his early twenties, he received a degree in Arabic studies from the University of Oxford and later moved to Yemen. He considers Yemen his adoptive country and has lived there for over 35 years. He reads and speaks Arabic fluently, with a Yemeni accent. His house in the capital Sanaa is a "medieval tower".
Mackintosh-Smith wrote several travel books including two about Yemen and a trilogy associated with Moroccan medieval explorer Ibn Battuta, which earned him the 1998 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the 2010 Oldie Best Travel Award and the 2010 Ibn Battuta Prize of Honour. The BBC produced a television series about his journey following the footsteps of Ibn Battuta.
In 2009 Mackintosh-Smith was commissioned by Yale University Press to write a book about Arab history, although he initially declined the task, because it was "too much work". He estimated it would take him 5 years, but eventually he needed about 9 years. The Yemeni Civil War (2015–present) confined him in his neighbourhood for more than 4 years. It was during this time of "neighbourhood arrest", with mortar shells and missiles falling around, and daily reverberating chants of "Death to America" that he wrote his Arabs. Due to total power cuts in Yemen during the war, the author used a solar panel powered laptop to write the book. Fleeing the war temporarily, Mackintosh-Smith has been staying in Kuala Lumpur since late 2019.
The book cover was designed by Alex Kirby. The choice to use gold foil patterns was meant to give it the look of "the definitive volume on the subject". Kirby said the inspiration for the cover came after he had gone through "dozens of books and sites featuring Islamic calligraphy, patterns and motifs". The cover design was chosen for the Association of American University Presses 2020 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show.
The audiobook was read by Ralph Lister, and is 25 hours 34 minutes long.
The title of the book refers to Arabs without using the definite article "the" (Arabs instead of the Arabs) because, according to the author, the meaning of the word has repeatedly changed over time, making it "misleading" to use. The subtitle is partly inspired by Quranic verse 49:13: "O mankind, We have created you from male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes, that you may know one another. [emphasis added]".
In addition to the foreword, introduction and afterword, the book is divided into six main parts that cover the three main "waves of unity" of recorded Arab history with each taking about the same number of pages. The first wave (900 BC to AD 630) contains parts on "Emergence" and "Revolution", the second (630 to 1350) contains "Dominance" and "Decline", and the third (1350 to now) covers "Eclipse" and "Re-emergence".
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Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires
Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires is a 2019 non-fiction book by British author and Arabist Tim Mackintosh-Smith. The book was written over nine years in Sanaa, Yemen, and during the last four years, the author was confined in his neighbourhood due to the eruption of the Yemeni Civil War. Covering the history of Arabs from their first known mention in 853 BCE up to the present, the book uses Arabic language as a unifying factor to tell the story. Arabs was met with dozens of reviews and mentions, the vast majority of them favorable.
Mackintosh-Smith is an Arabist, travel writer and Arabic translator. He is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and an emeritus Senior Fellow of the New York University Library of Arabic Literature. He views himself as a post-Orientalist, a term referring to Palestinian scholar Edward Said's book Orientalism. In his early twenties, he received a degree in Arabic studies from the University of Oxford and later moved to Yemen. He considers Yemen his adoptive country and has lived there for over 35 years. He reads and speaks Arabic fluently, with a Yemeni accent. His house in the capital Sanaa is a "medieval tower".
Mackintosh-Smith wrote several travel books including two about Yemen and a trilogy associated with Moroccan medieval explorer Ibn Battuta, which earned him the 1998 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the 2010 Oldie Best Travel Award and the 2010 Ibn Battuta Prize of Honour. The BBC produced a television series about his journey following the footsteps of Ibn Battuta.
In 2009 Mackintosh-Smith was commissioned by Yale University Press to write a book about Arab history, although he initially declined the task, because it was "too much work". He estimated it would take him 5 years, but eventually he needed about 9 years. The Yemeni Civil War (2015–present) confined him in his neighbourhood for more than 4 years. It was during this time of "neighbourhood arrest", with mortar shells and missiles falling around, and daily reverberating chants of "Death to America" that he wrote his Arabs. Due to total power cuts in Yemen during the war, the author used a solar panel powered laptop to write the book. Fleeing the war temporarily, Mackintosh-Smith has been staying in Kuala Lumpur since late 2019.
The book cover was designed by Alex Kirby. The choice to use gold foil patterns was meant to give it the look of "the definitive volume on the subject". Kirby said the inspiration for the cover came after he had gone through "dozens of books and sites featuring Islamic calligraphy, patterns and motifs". The cover design was chosen for the Association of American University Presses 2020 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show.
The audiobook was read by Ralph Lister, and is 25 hours 34 minutes long.
The title of the book refers to Arabs without using the definite article "the" (Arabs instead of the Arabs) because, according to the author, the meaning of the word has repeatedly changed over time, making it "misleading" to use. The subtitle is partly inspired by Quranic verse 49:13: "O mankind, We have created you from male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes, that you may know one another. [emphasis added]".
In addition to the foreword, introduction and afterword, the book is divided into six main parts that cover the three main "waves of unity" of recorded Arab history with each taking about the same number of pages. The first wave (900 BC to AD 630) contains parts on "Emergence" and "Revolution", the second (630 to 1350) contains "Dominance" and "Decline", and the third (1350 to now) covers "Eclipse" and "Re-emergence".