Customer Reviews

Middle East Patterns: Places, Peoples, and Politics

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Dr. Held's vast experience working as a Middle East geographer for the U.S. State Department pays off in a comprehensive synthesis showing the importance of natural resources and human culture. He begins with an overview of Middle Eastern geography: climate, water resources, topography, petroleum, and human settlement. He then treats each country in a chapter that synthesizes geography, culture and politics. Chapters are well written and illustrated. The book is suffused with the author's fascination with the variety of human cultures in the Middle East.

The fifth updated edition of Colbert C. Held and John Thomas Cummings's MIDDLE EAST PATTERNS has been revised and updated and is a reader recommended for all high school to college-level students of the region's history, politics and economics. New material on development economics and political economy compliment new sections on terrorism, piracy, women's health and perspectives on patterns both within and between nations. Very highly recommended!

Short of understanding Islamic history - nothing else could explain the middle eastern countries better. I am basing my review however on the 4th edition, it was soo good, when I discovered a revised edition was out - I had to get it for reference.

good textbook, I got it cause it was cheaper to but it from amazon that through campus bookstore