This book provides a background to the modern geography of the Middle East by tracing the evolution of humanized managed landscapes from the domestication of cereals through to the initiation of the great transformations of the region in the mid-nineteenth century. By examining the natural potential of the region in terms of climate, natural vegetation and physical conditions, and charting the emergence of basic long-lasting traditional economies based on this environment, the author shows how the environment stimulated traditional life styles, which in turn perpetuated and molded the region.