An encyclopedia this is not. The pictures dazzle and the production is lavish, but the fact is, Mostyn and his team of mostly British specialists have compiled what amounts to an introductory volume on the Middle East. The Cambridge Encyclopedia will suit journalists or students in search of quick information; but anyone with a more serious or sustained interest in the area will find the volume too rudimentary.
Perhaps most surprising is the method of presentation, which does not follow standard encyclopedia format (alphabetical listing by topic) but consists of chapters. The result is a narrative, not a reference book, leading to some oddities. The volume includes chapters on chemistry and alchemy, on Israeli theater and cinema, and on solar energy. But Islam is covered in just two chapters and the region's entire 5,000-year history receives just eight. Then, because of the peculiar conceptualization and arrangement, many important matters are simply absent. A search through the index found this random list of topics missing: the Dome of the Rock, Jalal ad-Din Rumi, Marrakesh, Lake Van, Edmund Allenby, King Faysal of Iraq, the Biltmore Program, Nagib Nahfouz, and 'Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. There are other lacunae too: the listing of "peoples without a country" omits Berbers; tourism does not merit a mention; and so forth.
Obviously, The Cambridge Encyclopedia hardly substitutes for the massive Encyclopedia of Islam, but it also rates poorly when compared with the modest but indispensable 1974 Political Dictionary of the Middle East in the 20th Century (edited by Yaacov Shimoni and Evyatar Levine).
