The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

96 JULY-AUGUST 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A Seminal Work on the Arab World Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Yale University Press, 2019, $35/hardcover, $18/paperback, eBook available, 656 pages. Reviewed by Charles O. Cecil Who is an “Arab”? What makes one identify as Arab? British author Tim Mackintosh-Smith sets out to examine these questions, drawing on his pro- found knowledge of the Arabic language and literature, especially poetry. His earlier three volumes on the travels of Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta and on Yemen, where he has lived for 30 years, have already established his reputation as a serious commentator on Arab his- tory and culture. This work will cement his standing in the field for decades. Mackintosh-Smith claims that the book is a history of the Arabs. But it is much more than that. Many writers begin their account of Arab history with a brief nod to conditions in the Arabian Peninsula immediately before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad and then follow the story from there. They also usually emphasize the competition for political and economic power in the centuries following the prophet’s death. Mackintosh-Smith, however, places Muhammad midway in the historical record, halfway between the first written reference to the Arabs (853 B.C.) and the modern era. As Mackintosh-Smith’s work is not a strictly chronological rendering of history, it might occasionally confuse readers new to the subject. His pursuit of certain themes sometimes results in skipping over details in the story, only to return to backfill later, after the reader has perhaps turned to other sources for clarification. One theme he discusses is the unify- ing power through the centuries of the Arabic language, anchored in the touchstone of the Quran, always juxtaposed against the historical and cultural centrifugal forces that have prevented the Arabs from achieving the dream of “Arab unity,” an aspirational goal much in vogue in the Nasser era and for some time afterward. We don’t hear much about that mirage today. The author’s knowledge of the lan- guage enriches the account with transla- tions of Arab poetry relevant to the story, quotations from Arab writers of the modern era, plus observations regarding the origin and meaning of many Arabic words and concepts. Readers who know Arabic will appreciate his approach more than those who don’t, but his style is always light and entertaining. He is as adept at coining a phrase in English as he is at interpreting important terms in Arabic, and displays a penchant for play- ing with words (“the Ba’th dissolved in bathos and battles”). Foreign Service readers may find the last two chapters most relevant to our work today—an unspoken argu- ment for the importance of 4/4 or better capability in the language. Chapter 15, “The Age of Disap- pointment,” helps us understand the events in the Arab world of the last 30 years—especially since 2000, particularly after the “Arab Spring” of 2011, “the spring that had no summer.” Mackintosh-Smith discusses the new influence of instant communica- tion through social media: “Words are still the sharpest weapons” and “men of words—poets, preachers, orators, authors … are the ones who have formed identity, forged unity and forced the march of history.” Yet up to our present time, neither language nor religion has been able to overcome the divisive forces of politics and culture or restrain the renewed growth of militant Islam. In his afterword, “In the Station of History,” Mackintosh-Smith hopes that Arabs themselves will assess not only the glorious highlights of their history but also their low points and failures, as a way of establishing a sounder basis for their future. For the last several decades students of the Arab world have relied on Philip Hitti’s History of the Arabs (1st edition, 1937; most recent, 10th edition, 2002) BOOKS Mackintosh-Smith’s use of contemporaneous quotations conveys the impression of one immersed in Arab culture and tradition, helping us to feel the spirit of the age.