The Last Caravan

Camels, Traders and Markets in the Middle East

Philippe Pétriat

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009524544
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Imprints page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Translation and Transliteration
• List of Abbreviations
• 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 Railways
• 4 Crossing Borders: Overland Trade in the Post-Ottoman Middle East (1910s–1930s)
• 5 The End of Caravans (1930–1950s)
• 6 Conclusion: Where Have the Caravans Gone?
• Bibliography
• Index