Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Middle East History at Penn State University. He is the author of Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State, and the recipient of the Amoco Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching and the 2000 Middle East Studies Association Mentoring Award.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi is Associate Professor of Middle East History at California State University, San Marcos. He is the co-author of Iraq's Armed Forces: An Analytical History and The Modern History of Iraq, fourth edition, with Phebe Marr.

1. Introduction 2. The Middle East Before Muhammad 3. Muhammad and the Rise of Islam 4. The Early Arab Conquests 5. The High Caliphate 6. The Rise of the Shi'a and the Influx of the Turks 7. The Crusader and Mongol Invasions 8. Islamic Civilization 9. Firearms, Slaves, and Empires [...]opean Interests and Imperialism 11. Westernizing Reform in the Nineteenth Century 12. The Rise of Nationalism 13. The Roots of Arab Bitterness 14. Modernizing Rulers in the Independent States 15. Egypt and the Fertile Crescent Under European Control 16. The Contest for Palestine 17. Israel's Rebirth and the Rise of Arab Nationalism 18. War and the Quest for Peace 19. Reassertion of Islamist Power 20. The 1991 Gulf War and the Peace Process 21. The Post-9/11 Decade in the Middle East 22. In the Season of Arab Discontent 23. The Regional Cold War in the Twenty-First Century Appendix I Appendix II