This book is a watershed in the study of the contemporary Middle East by Western man. It is an exciting book but not one to be read quickly and easily. It is complex, even at times obscure, because the Middle East is complex and obscure. This from the preface, the front page of which is one of my uploaded photos.

Preface /Sir Hamilton Gibb -- I -- The disruption of traditional man -- The Qadîm: the 'old' or 'organic -- Classical Damascus -- The eternal bedouin -- A Greek of the underworld -- The new Fitna -- II -- Variable and invariable factors -- The east-west conflict again -- Sign and object -- The symbolic east -- The synoptic east -- The historic east -- Arab individuality and world factors -- III -- Towards an economic system -- Ethics and economics -- Risk -- Things -- Number -- A general view -- IV -- The problem of finance -- Promises and threats -- Recourse to the unknown factor of the east -- Creation of capital in the Arab world -- Rise of the banks -- Customs, morals, and things -- Mistrust of self -- V -- The acquisition of technique -- Words and men -- Equipment and landscapes -- Towards a civilization based on industrial objects -- Three cases of self-criticisim -- VI -- The reluctant entrepreneur -- Application of theory in the middle east -- Historic characteristics of Egyptian enterprise -- Regulations and life -- Lebanese ingenuity -- The Miṣr group and its rivals -- VII -- A contemporary imamate -- Characteristics of middle eastern 'Étatisme' -- Egyptian activism -- A panorama of middle eastern planning -- From fundamentalism to the choice of sudden progress -- VIII -- Ascent to the basic -- Factories and feelings -- Rise of new classes -- The co-operative movement in Egypt -- Difficult beginnings of the commune -- Decay and restoration of the rural masses -- IX -- Woman's intercession -- Masculinity -- Mothers and daughters -- The women's movement in Iraq -- Egyptian feminism -- A physical and emotional revolution -- The Arab woman and history -- X -- The language -- The initiators -- Discovery of nature -- The rehabilitation of popular art -- Invention of the theatre -- From the word to language -- Mass communication -- Realism and symbolism -- Sacred and profane in the language -- XI -- Music and the plastic arts -- Anti-figurative nature of Arab art -- Traditional musical feeling -- The east-west conflict again -- Main stages of Egyptian music -- New musical trends -- Experiments in the plastic arts -- Music and action -- XII -- Political values -- Arab politics and social progress -- Close groupings -- Broad groupings -- Presence of the alien -- The three stages of the national movement XIII -- Beyond politics -- Two generations -- Reassessments -- Humanists and revolutionaries -- Humanism and the sense of guilt -- An attempt at interpretation -- Aspiration towards completeness -- XIV -- The Arabs, the world and ourselves -- What is the Arab East? -- The two hypotheses -- From misfortune to favour -- Glossary of Arabic words and expressions -- List of author's works on related subjects -- Index.