This authoritative study of the Arabians and the Arabic-speakingpeoples is a work of great thoroughness and insight which contains muchto satisfy general readers as well as scholars. Here is the story of therise of Islam in the Middle Ages, its conquests, its empire, its timeof greatness and of decay, unrolling one of the richest and mostinstructive panoramas in history. For this reissue of the tenth edition,Walid Khalidi gives a brief overview of the history and content of thebook, and emphasises the vital importance of Philip K. Hitti'smagisterial and scholarly work to on-going attempts to bridge theArab/Western cultural divide.This accessible text is ideal not onlyfor undergraduate and postgraduate students of Arabic and Islamicstudies, but also for the general reader and many scholars in variousfields of history.