can someone recommend a good book on middle eastern history?

Question

focusing some on the conflicts and what roles individual groups played. i'd like an interesting (non-dry) read with a fairly non-biased approach.

Answer 1

A good starting point is "Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist" by Bradley Steffens. It tells the fascinating, true story of a medieval Muslim scholar who overcame bouts of mental illness to develop the scientific method more than 200 years before the Europeans learned of it--by reading his books.

Born in what is now Iraq in 965, Ibn al-Haytham studied theology, trying to resolve the differences between the Shi'ah and Sunnah sects. He turned his attention to the works of the ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians. He was the first person to apply algebra to geometry, founding analytic geometry. He traveled to Egypt to build a dam on the Nile, failed, and ended up imprisoned in Cairo for ten years. During this time he began systematically testing hypotheses with experiments, the core of the scientific method.

"Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist" was just chosen by California Readers to be part of the 2008 California Collection. You can find reviews of the book and a sample chapter at http://www.ibnalhaytham.net/