File 756/1917 Pt 1 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 1 to 65’ [‎476v] (957/1240)

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SYRIA.
Books.
I am asked frequently whether any, and if so, what, book in a
Furonean lammage provides a conspectus of the actual social and
pohticaf condftions 0 P f Syria. I can only replv that, to the best
of my knowledge, there is no such single work. Guide-books do
not supply the need, both for the general reason that they- treat
such subiects too summarily and for the special reason that, in
Syria they devote a disproportionate amount oi their space to
one small fraction of the country, viz. Palestine. Nor are the best
ideographical compendia much more satisfactory, their sectional
treatment of so comparatively small a territory as settled Syria
beino- necessarily very brief. Moreover, there is no modern travel-
book which describes all, or anything like all, Syria. No govern
ment commission, scientific society, or individual explorer, has ever
set to work to examine this land as a whole, and produce a
comprehensive report upon its entne length. Either, like
Oppenheim, the travellers have taken cross sections only, or, like
Miss Gertrude Bell, one longitudinal section with occasional
digressions to right and left. None has coveied half the whole
around. This lack reflects and illustrates the historical fact that,
m practical politics, Syria has never yet been regarded as a single
entity, and the further fact that one district of it, Palestine,
detached from the whole by sentiment, has engrossed popular
attention. Therefore one can recommend no single book on the
society and politics of Syria, regarded as one land from the Negeb
to the Taurus, but only several books on different districts.
Those of comparatively modern date and general scope alone will
be cited here, and periodical literature, which is not easily acces
sible, and Intelligence Handbooks, etc., which may be taken for
granted, will be left out of account.
To begin from the south, the desert fringe has been rather
unusually well studied and is sufficiently described in a group of
three good books, Palmer’s “Desert of the Exodus,” Musil’s
“ Arabia Petrtea,” and “ The Wilderness of Zin ” (Pal. Expl.
Fund), by Woolley and Lawrence.
For Southern Palestine, west of the Dead Sea, we are fortu
nate in having Ellsworth Huntington’s “ Palestine and its Trans
formation,” a recent intensive geographical study of all ancient
Judasa and Samaria ; but this book will not be found sufficient
by an enquirer about ethnographical distribution or features of
social life. Nor do I know any other recent book that will supply
this defect. We are better off in the wilder region east of the
Dead Sea ; for there we have not only Musil’s book, cited above,
but Jaussen’s “ Coutumes des Arabes du Pays de Moab,” and
(more illuminating than either of these) a glimpse of the Belqa
country through the sympathetic discerning eyes of Miss Bell,
as set forth in the opening chapters of her “ Desert and the
Sown.” 1 his traveller comes more fully into the picture as we