Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and concise
Review: This is a concise introduction to the history of the Arab people. It is fairly easy to read, yet comprehensive; interesting, yet dispassionate. Albert Hourani does an excellent job presenting an overall picture of Arab history and society. I particularly enjoyed how this book considers history as more than a mere collection of events and dates or the conquests of kings. Rather, for every historical period, it attempts to paint a picture of the lives of ordinary people. Thus we learn about education, religion, law, marriage, and other aspects of society. This is a major strength of the book. Naturally, in a book about Arab history, a great deal of emphasis is put on Islamic religion, which is perhaps the most potent force shaping Arab history and culture. In a way therefore this book also offers an excellent introduction to Islam and Islamic history. Nevertheless, I would have liked to see more material about pre-Islamic times. Furthermore, while the title "Arab peoples" acknowledges the fact that most of the modern-day "Arabs" are descended from non-Arabs who at some point adopted Arab language and culture, this point is not made explicit in the text, and the pre-Arab history of these peoples is ignored. Having said that, I admit that it is impossible to include any more information about Arab history in the same number of pages (500), making this book a definite accomplishment. It is an excellent and readable introduction to Arab history, and a lead to other more specialized books (listed in the 27-page bibliography). The index alone reads like a who's who in Arab history.
Rating: 
Summary: Good overview; major focus on last 200 years, though
Review: This is not a strictly 'chronological' history, as the major pre-modern time periods are grouped in hundreds of years and then addressed with somewhat recurring themes ('Cities', Islam, rulers, etc.). However, some 200 pages of the 450 or so focus on the last 200 years, so if you're looking for thorough treatment of early or middle Islam keep looking. Also, this is truly a history of 'Arab' Islam, so if you want details on Iranians, Indians, Indonesians, or even certain European/Turkish aspects keep looking. Oddly, Turks receive better treatment...then again to keep them out of the history would have been severely limiting. Nonetheless, plowing through the first 200-250 pages gives one a good overview of the development of Arab culture. And, if you are most intrigued by how current events have developed this may be a fine book for you. 11/18 - Well, I started this book before the events of 9/11 with the expectations of a comprehensive treatment of Arab history...hence my comments on the overweighted focus on the last 200 years. However since then, I've finished the last couple hundred pages as I (and most everyone I know) is far more interested in current events these days. An excellent overview that will make you pause to think....
Rating:
Summary: Academic and Comprehensive
Review: To those who have had their history lesson from Hollywood, it is easy to see the "creation" of the Arab world centering around T. E. Lawrence and the Saudis. However, books like Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples offer a counterpoint. Beautifully written, in plain and simple English, this book is comparable to those that have come before. It serves to broaden our perspective around the richness that is the Arab world. The range of the book is amazing - pre-islamic empires, social constructions, religion, civilization. Without the hyperbole that marks works that wish to compensate for the lack of information about what has gone before, Hourani takes us to a time and place we have never seen. OK, there are parts that seem more academic than your average book but it gets to the point. Richly detailed and very detached, the world is richer for books like this. Miguel Llora
Rating:
Summary: The only book with such a broad scope.
Review: To those who say this is a boring book, or there isn't any history I laugh. This is the most complete chronicle of Arab History to date. Boring? yes if you're used to reading your history in the tabloids. The book covers thirteen centuries of history in 458 pages. It starts in the seventh century, introducing the Arab world at its first critical turning point: the coming of the Prophet Muhammad. Before the Prophet the people lived in a state of jahiliyya (or ignorance of religious truth).
After giving a good background on the Prophet the book moves swiftly to describe the Arab world after his death. He does this in such a way as to include sociology, politics, religion (of course), culture, war, alliances, and literature. No other author can claim such a comprehensive outlook on the situation as Hourani.
Next his analysis takes the same broad scope on the Ottoman age and discusses the last, great empire of the Arab world (although they are not Arab). He discusses how the Arab people responded to these outside rulers and finally how the Ottoman empire responded to the growing power of the European empires.
He goes on to discuss how the European empires controlled the Arab world, how they fought over the land and trade routes, and how the Arab world responded to this. He discusses how education was very much Europeanized (especially in the Magrib, or northern Africa, where Arab culture did not affect the culture as much from the beginning).
In the last part he discusses the age of nations and the conflicts which aroused from having been colonized (not in the sense you would think however, instead of purely blaming the colonizers he merely shows how this created great differences in the culture and political and religious ideals of the people). He discusses the importance of the creation of Israel, the successive wars of 1967 and 1973 between the Arabs and Israel, the fight between Mauritania and Morocco and Spain over the Western Sahara, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Iran-Iraq war. This is essential information to understanding the modern Arab world.
You will not find a book with more information and less bias on the subject. If you are interested in the problems of the region today, you must read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The only book with such a broad scope.
Review: To those who say this is a boring book, or there isn't any history I laugh. This is the most complete chronicle of Arab History to date. Boring? yes if you're used to reading your history in the tabloids. The book covers thirteen centuries of history in 458 pages. It starts in the seventh century, introducing the Arab world at its first critical turning point: the coming of the Prophet Muhammad. Before the Prophet the people lived in a state of jahiliyya (or ignorance of religious truth).
After giving a good background on the Prophet the book moves swiftly to describe the Arab world after his death. He does this in such a way as to include sociology, politics, religion (of course), culture, war, alliances, and literature. No other author can claim such a comprehensive outlook on the situation as Hourani.
Next his analysis takes the same broad scope on the Ottoman age and discusses the last, great empire of the Arab world (although they are not Arab). He discusses how the Arab people responded to these outside rulers and finally how the Ottoman empire responded to the growing power of the European empires.
He goes on to discuss how the European empires controlled the Arab world, how they fought over the land and trade routes, and how the Arab world responded to this. He discusses how education was very much Europeanized (especially in the Magrib, or northern Africa, where Arab culture did not affect the culture as much from the beginning).
In the last part he discusses the age of nations and the conflicts which aroused from having been colonized (not in the sense you would think however, instead of purely blaming the colonizers he merely shows how this created great differences in the culture and political and religious ideals of the people). He discusses the importance of the creation of Israel, the successive wars of 1967 and 1973 between the Arabs and Israel, the fight between Mauritania and Morocco and Spain over the Western Sahara, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Iran-Iraq war. This is essential information to understanding the modern Arab world.
You will not find a book with more information and less bias on the subject. If you are interested in the problems of the region today, you must read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely detailed with major historical gaps
Review: What a tedious read!!! Where is the history of Suleyman The Great?! Did the crusades happen?! Did America ever do anything in Tripoli?! Do women exist in the modern Muslim world?!!! While being extremely detailed about historical social practices and religious thought, Hourani left out key historical periods. If you want to come to better understanding of Arab society, I am sure that you can find a more concise book that does not neglect / ignore key world events.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely detailed with major historical gaps
Review: What a tedious read!!! Where is the history of Suleyman The Great?! Did the crusades happen?! Did America ever do anything in Tripoli?! Do women exist in the modern Muslim world?!!! While being extremely detailed about historical social practices and religious thought, Hourani left out key historical periods. If you want to come to better understanding of Arab society, I am sure that you can find a more concise book that does not neglect / ignore key world events.
Rating:
Summary: a history of the people
Review: When Hourani titled his book, "History of the Arab Peoples," he was being honest and literal--- the book is literally a history of the peoples, including the development of their interpretations of Islam, the formation of various schools of thought on the Islamic law and how literally it was to be interpreted, the conflict between secularism and fundamentalism and nationalism in the post-imperial period.
This is not a book about wars, nations, or heroes: the Crusades are barely mentioned, Salah-al-Din gets scant mention, as do Timur, the Mongols, or other great conquerors mythologized in Western poetry and children's stories. Rather, this is a book about society, about urbanization, about economic migration, about the development of political and national consciousness, about the development of literatures, about the use of colloquial versus classical Arabic in poetry, about the rise of Ottoman bureaucracies, and the basis of their legitimacy and power.
In short, this book is a history of the peoples: what shaped their intellectual development, the history of their cultures, etc. I think this is the right emphasis, because the political history (at least for the past 100 years) was mostly imposed by outsiders and is therefore (in my opinion) superficial, and is still in a state of fast flux and definition (e.g. what will be the political outcome in Iraq?), whereas a study of the core Arab / Islamic identity seems to be a more solid foundation from which one can attempt to understand the political structures that have been built. Put another way, Hourani's book will never go out of date, whereas a book that attempted more to explain the current politics of the Middle East would only survive as long as the next treaty or revolution. Yes terrorism is completely unemphasized, but that is appropriate to the purpose of this history, and does not diminish from its importance or usefulness at all: you will not achieve any understanding of the Arab peoples by studying terrorism, but you will go a long way toward understanding terrorism by studying the history of the Arab peoples.
I agree with previous reviewers that more exposition of the differences in the Islamic schools of thought would have been helpful, as would have been a glossary (versus having to flip to the first reference to that word in the text). I would have also liked more emphasis on scientific, technological, financial and economic innovation, as opposed to the emphasis mostly on philosophical innovation. The treatment of debate on the proper role of logic and argument in the study of Islam is quite good. Finally, the author adopts a secular, non-Western viewpoint that is quite refreshing and appropriate.
Rating:
Summary: Great reader!
Review: With 'A History of the Arab Peoples', Hourani gives a great introduction to those who want to learn more about the history of this region as well as the roots of its problems. I have always been mysified by the Arab peninsula and was not dissappointed when I picked up this book to learn more about it. Also, Hourani's account of poetry is very enlightening
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