No one knows exactly what the Middle East means, which countries it should precisely include, in the middle of which exact geographical area it should be located to adequately justify the term "middle," why the "middle" geographical area of the Near East and North Africa is eastern (Asian) and not western (European), since Western civilization once rose in the East. Even geographers have been confused in the most complex region of the globe. The rather geopolitical than geographical term "Middle East" appears belatedly, at the beginning of our century. Initially, it defined only the area around the Persian Gulf. Therefore, the neologism "Middle East" was then more related to the oil of Persia and the Persian Gulf and less to some indeterminate middle ground, except perhaps for the compromise imposed between the oil companies that created the term, probably to indirectly indicate that the oil of the Middle East interests both the West and the East, and the North and the South. In a way, the Middle East is the geopolitical center of the entire globe. (. . .) In a cultural sense, the Middle East is the focal point of the meeting of civilizations that appeared in Asia, Africa, and Europe, which are neither exactly Asian, nor exactly African, nor exactly European. [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]