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Recommendations from our site
“This was written in the 1950s after Thesiger returned from five years of Arabian travel. He was one of the few non-indigenous people to cross “the Empty Quarter”, the desert that occupies a huge part of what is now Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It’s almost a million square kilometres of billowing amber dunes – and more terrifying than an ocean.” Read more...
The best books on Desert Nations
Jo Tatchell, Journalist
“It’s the authority on the Arabian Desert. He ventures into The Empty Quarter, one of the great deserts of the world. Arabia was an incredibly harsh place for human beings to live. Thesiger shows how Arabs, especially nomadic Arabs, were in tune with this ecology. They developed a culture that enabled them to survive. He shows the humanity of the Bedouin, otherwise thought to be savages.” Read more...
Bernard Haykel, Historian
Our most recommended books
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The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement in Iraq
by Hanna Batatu -
The Mantle of the Prophet
by Roy Mottahedeh -
The Travels of Ibn Battutah
by Ibn Battutah (edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith) -
My Grandmother
by Fethiye Cetin -
My Uncle Napoleon
by Iraj Pezeshkzad -
Girls of Riyadh
by Rajaa Alsanea
