" In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it. Updated with a new postscript on the revolutions of 2011, The Arabs is an invaluable, groundbreaking, and comprehensive account by one of the most repected authorities on the Middle East."--Back cover.

"Revised and Updated with acomplete analysis of the Arab revolutions of 2011"--Front cover. ""Updated with a new postscript on the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions of 2011""--Cover p. [4]

Introduction -- From Cairo to Istanbul -- Arab challenge to Ottoman Rule -- Egyptian Empire of Muhammad 'Ali -- Perils of reform -- First Wave of Colonialism: North Africa -- Divide and rule: World War I and the postwar settlement -- British Empire in the Middle East -- French Empire in the Middle East -- Palestine disaster and its consequences -- Rise of Arab nationalism -- Decline of Arab nationalism -- Age of Oil -- Power of Islam -- After the Cold War -- Epilogue -- Postscript : year 1 of the Arab revelutions -- Acknowledgments -- Permissions -- Notes -- Index.