Few regions of the world have been featured so prominently in the news in recent years as the Middle East and North Africa, invariably in a negative context. With two-thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves and a strategic location at the junction of three continents, it has seen almost constant military intervention and political interference from outside, most recently in the form of US involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has fueled powerful local responses, both culturally and politically. Today, bloody internal wars rage in several countries. The region is also the birthplace and focal point of Islam, the world’s second largest universal faith, ensuring that its global importance will endure. But Judaism and Christianity also have strong historical and spiritual connections with this region, connecting it to the larger world in numerous ways.

Because the contemporary political map of the Middle East was largely an arbitrary product of European colonial rule, it remains deeply flawed, contributing to territorial and boundary conflicts that have contributed to extreme militarization. The combination of religious and linguistic diversity aggravates the region’s political problems, destabilizing states. In a world facing rapid climate change, the Middle East and North Africa face particularly grave challenges, with water scarcity already a serious problem and likely to get worse at a time when population is growing rapidly. Yet most American students are still largely uninformed about this vitally important region, viewing it through a lens that is distorted by ignorance, fear, demagoguery, and cultural prejudice. This book aims to sharpen and clean that lens, providing students with an understanding of key regional characteristics, challenges, and issues.