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

Tells the history of the interior of the Middle East, using travelling caravans to understand its connectivity and economy.

Philippe Pétriat (Author)

9781009524520, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 January 2025

306 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.6 kg

'An indispensable contribution to the connected history of traders and markets and to the Middle East's political economy, offering a master class in writing history while filling a significant gap in the scholarship … Recommended.' K. Mouradian, Choice

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.

Introduction: the long history of Caravans between Palmyra and Bukhara
1. Caravans exposed: the management of insecurity in the steppe between Baghdad and Damascus
2. The Political Economy of a regional trade in the second half of the Nineteenth Century (1850s–1900s)
3. Caravan business in the age of steam Ships and Railroads
4. Crossing borders: overland trade in the post-ottoman Middle East (1910s–1930s)
5. The end of Caravans (1930–1950s)
Conclusion: where have the Caravans Gone?
Tables
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]