Precious oil and export markets, wars in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, peace talks at the White House, terrorist eruptions: more now than ever, Arab affairs are the West's affair. And yet as we find ourselves increasingly enmeshed in its politics and economics, the Middle East remains a mystery to most of us, a world of dimly understood connections and impenetrable complexities. The Arab world at last becomes accessible in this book.

The only book to include developments since the Gulf War and the historic pact between Israel and the PLO, Inside the Arab World gives us a complete and detailed picture of the region as it is today, as well as a clear sense of how Arab affairs have evolved and where they may lead.

Despite its abundance of oil, the Arab world has failed to produce a single successful economy. Michael Field, a recognized expert and long-time reporter on the Arab states, explores the cultural, political, and geographic reasons for this failure. Ranging from Algeria to the Gulf states to Egypt and Syria, he considers the fragmentation of society, the people's tolerance of bad government, corruption, and the deadening economic effect of Arab socialism.

But he also shows how the region - influenced partly by exposure to Western media, partly by reforms imposed by creditors - is changing now, taking its first cautious steps toward democracy, whose opportunities so far have been most firmly grasped by Islamic fundamentalists. Timely, thorough, and highly readable, this book offers much-needed insight into the Arab world as its politics and policies increasingly engage our own.