The Last Caravan: Camels, Traders and Markets in the Middle East - Hardcover

Pétriat, Philippe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1009524526 ISBN 13: 9781009524520

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2025

Synopsis

What can travelling camels tell us about the history of the interior of the Middle East? In this innovative book Philippe Pétriat demonstrates how caravans - groups of travellers, often on trade expeditions, journeying together for mutual protection in hostile regions - are essential to understanding the history of the inside territories of the Ottoman Empire with its neighbours. From the first use of camels in transport, through to the decline of the caravan from the 1930s onwards, Pétriat reconstructs the land routes of these travellers through vast steppes and deserts in captivating detail. Moving discussions of the political economy of the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Middle East beyond analysis of the coastal regions and maritime exchanges with Western countries, The Last Caravan instead reveals the pivotal importance of the Ottoman and Arab merchants in the suburbs of the cities and the rural markets and the travelling nomads and the animals that supported them.

About this title

About the Author

Philippe Pétriat specializes in the Modern and Economic History of the Middle East. He is an Associate Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a researcher at IHMC (CNRS) and CEFREPA (Kuwait). He has published several articles on the history of trade and mobility in Middle East, and books on the history of the Hejaz and Saudi Arabia (Le négoce des Lieux Saints, 2016), Kuwait, and the history of oil through the vantage of Arabic sources (Une histoire arabe du pétrole, 2021).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009524526
• ISBN 13: 9781009524520
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 306