Publisher's Synopsis
After the Golden Age -- which is usually dated back to early Abbasid period -- things began to change in the Middle East. Population decreased, ancient cities declined or were even deserted, and barbaric nomadism spread at the expense of civilised agriculture. In a parallel process intellectual creativity was stifled and artistic originality dried up. Thus even before the capitalist world economy made its influence felt, the once dynamic civilisations of the Middle East were turning into stagnate proto-developing countries: impoverished, disease-ridden and technologically backward. The present study asks a few simple questions about this notion of decline: How extensive and how general was the contraction of agriculture and de-urbanisation? What kinds of explanations can we offer?
