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The invention of the wheel was a landmark in human history.
Oddly enough, its use for transportation was abandoned throughout the Middle East
and North Africa sometime between the third and sixth centuries of our era. The
pack camel replaced the wagon, and wheeled vehicles remained virtually unknown
from the time of their disappearance until the twentieth century, Mr. Bulliet's
richly illustrated study is devoted to an explanation of this anomaly.
In exploring why a vast area of the globe, encompassing some
of our most advanced societies, at a certain time in history turned from the wheel
to the camel, the author analyzes the development of camel domestication and the
technology of their utilization; the rise of the camel-breeding nomads as a political
force and the linking of their political ascendancy with the social and economic
integration between desert and sown land; and the implications of wheellessness
for the economic and social development of the area during the Middle Ages and
modern times. His account of European and American experiments with camels is
a reminder of how closely tied a species of work animal is to the entire social
context. Mr. Bulliet draws on anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological
evidence to tell his fascinating story. Richard W.
Bulliet, Lecturer in Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
is the author of The Patricians of Nishapur and a murder mystery called
Kicked to Death by a Camel. |
