War, colonialism, resistance, creativity from Morocco to Iraq and from the 16th to the 21st century – the most comprehensive history of the Arab world. Best book of the year by the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Atlantic.

There was a time when Arabs set the rules of the game for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arabs' sense of being subject to external forces has tremendous consequences for both the region and the Western powers trying to control it.

Starting from the Ottoman conquests of the 16th century, the book traces the history of the Arabs in the times of European imperialism and the rivalry of superpowers during the Cold War to the present era of unilateral American power and the recent geopolitical developments that have informed this edition.

Mapping the evolution of Arab identity from Ottomanism to Pan-Arabism and Islamism, the award-winning author Eugene Rogan examines among other topics the conflict between national independence and foreign domination, the Arab-Israeli conflicts and peace processes, the rise of Nasser and Arab nationalism, the political and economic power of oil, and the conflict between secular and Islamic values.

Balancing between different voices – politicians, intellectuals, and students, men and women, poets and novelists, famous, infamous, and entirely unknown figures – it provides a dense, multifaceted sense of the life, history, and prospects of the Arab world.