History of the Middle East

History of the ME cover

The Arabs: A Short History by Heinz Halm

The Ottoman Empire: A Short History by Suraiya Faroqhi

Iran:A Short History by Monika Gronke

Now combined into a single volume, these three brief history texts provide a concise and eye-opening overview of the history of the Middle East. Each is written by a leading expert, and all have been hailed as outstanding introductions for the general reader.  These texts have been widely translated and adopted at universities in Turkey, Norway, Italy, and Germany, as well as throughout North America.


Heinz Halm (University of Tübingen) is one of the world’s leading scholars on the Middle East and especially on Shiism. His books, which have been translated into numerous languages, include The Shiites: A Short History (also available from Markus Wiener) and The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids. Professer Halm is the editor of Die Welt des Orients, and his shorter studies have appeared in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Encyclopaedia Iranica, and numerous learned journals.

Suraiya Faroqhi is Professor of Ottoman Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and Bilgi University in Istanbul. She has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, and Dartmouth College. She is the author of numerous books, many of which have been translated into several languages, including The Ottoman Empire and the Outside World, 1540–1774.

Monica Gronke is a professor at the University of Cologne.