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f o u r . The Transformation of the Middle Eastern Environment, 1500 b.c.e.–2000 c.e. edmund burke iii DEEP HISTORY: 1500 b.c.e.–1450 c.e. The environment is rarely mentioned in most histories of the modern Middle East. It tends to hover on the margins of discussions of other, presumably more important topics, such as the onset of imperialism and nationalism and the region’s political and economic transformation. Indeed, most histories of the modern Middle East regard the environment as a source of backwardness, which only the application of modern science and technology can overcome. Such modernist fables are, of course, uplifting to a degree. The introduction of modern technology (regardless of the auspices under which it took place) certainly transformed the relations between humans and the Middle Eastern environment. However, if we consider the deep history of the region, the ability of humans to alter the environment profoundly is hardly new, and the choices made by elites have always had consequences (often unforeseen) further down the line. I use the term Middle East to include all of southwest Asia and northern Africa, from Iran to Morocco, while my chronological scope is from 1500 b.c.e. to the present. The Middle Eastern region is vast (more than six thousand kilometers across) and ecologically diverse (although predominantly arid and semiarid). Located in the center of the Great Arid Zone, it extends from the Sahara in the west to the deserts of China and Central Asia in the east. Focusing on the environment provides the basis for a new comparative history of the region along ecological lines: the river valleys; the Mediterranean areas of dry farming; and the deserts, 81 oases, and waste lands where pastoralism was predominant. Each of these three zones had its own prevailing flora and fauna, patterns of agriculture, and forms of social and political organization. Because of its location at the juncture of Africa, Europe, and Asia, the Middle Eastern climate is shaped by the complex interaction of four different wind systems . These are the seasonal monsoons that govern the climate of the Indian Ocean region, including southern Arabia, East Africa, and southern Iran; the inner Asian wind system that brings snow and bitter cold from the steppe in winter; the summer thermals that arise in the deserts of Arabia and the Sahara; and the Atlantic system that brings fall and winter rains. Rainfall is a function of both altitude (the higher the elevation, the more rain the land receives) and location (regions facing the prevailing winds have much higher rainfall than those in the rain shadow on the lee side of the mountains). Climatological records reveal an enormous variability in the timing and amounts of annual rainfall, as well as in different locales in any given year. For example, although annual rainfall averages 30 inches (approximately 750 millimeters) across the region, there is virtually no rainfall in the Empty Quarter of southeastern Arabia, but in excess of 60 inches (1,500 mm) a year between the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and the Alburz Mountains of Iran. Most Middle Eastern people have always lived in the river valleys (of the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates-Karun, the Amu Darya, and the Hilmand), which were central to the fate of ancient Middle Eastern empires.1 It was here that the first cities and the first agrarian empires developed. The Mediterranean zone and adjacent steppes, where dry farming was predominant, have also been well studied. Their history has been shaped by the actions of states and empires originating in the river valleys, as well as by longer time climatic cycles (such as El Niño and the so-called Little Ice Age). The third environment I discuss—that of the deserts, waste lands, and oases—was primarily inhabited by pastoral nomadic groups. Pastoralism emerged in the first millennium b.c.e. as an adaptation to the harsh conditions of the desert steppe. Pastoralists have played a disproportionate role in the history of the region, repeatedly conquering the agrarian empires in the river valleys. Historically, pastoralists have also facilitated exchanges (both material and cultural) between the societies and civilizations that surround them. The Silk Road that connected China and the West is but the most vivid example. The relationship between the agrarian world of the river valleys, the merchants of the urban centers, and the pastoral nomads of the steppe constitutes a leitmotif in the history of the region.2 By placing...

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