The Arab World

The Arab World is defined here as the Arabic-speaking world, which stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Middle East to West Africa. It's no small chore to cram 4000 years of history, religion and ethnicity into a 25-minute tape, so there is much which is necessarily left out, like the Iran-Iraq war, for instance. The tape does discuss how the three Abrahamic religions all came out of the Fertile Crescent, linked to one another, and how that led to the inevitable conflicts for souls and bodies which continues today. The tape uses a lot of still photos (even for the contemporary era, where film and video should be available), and the film footage that is shown has apparently been provided by the embassies of the various countries concerned (which explains the dated look of cars, fashions, etc.). The tape was already in production when Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, but since it's far too general to purchase for public and academic libraries anyway, it will be a teachers' task to update students on the current events of the region. Recommended, with reservations. Aud: J, H. (R. Reagan)