This wide-ranging book charts the successive transformations of the Middle East, beginning with the two great empires, Roman and Persian, which disputed the Middle East 2000 years ago; the development of monotheism and the spread of Christianity; the rapid rise and spread of Islam over a vast area; the invasion of the Mongol hordes of Ghengis Khan; the rise of the Ottoman Turks in Anatolia, the Mamluks in Egypt and the Safavid shahs in Persia; the peak and decline of the great Ottoman state; the changing balance of power between the Muslim and Christian worlds; and the overwhelming impact, in modern times, of Western ideas and technology, and the attempts to reverse them.