Why read Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran?

Book cover of Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History

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A boom in the production and export of cotton made Iran the richest region of the Islamic caliphate in the ninth and tenth centuries. Yet in the eleventh century, Iran's impressive agricultural economy entered a steep decline, bringing the country's primacy to an end. Richard W. Bulliet advances several provocative…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Kenneth W. Harl

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I recommend as a very readable account based on original research about the role played by Oghuz Turkish tribes in extending the range and importance of the international trade along the Silk Road between the tenth and eleventh centuries by breeding hybrid camels.

Bulliet has established his reputation as a scholar of vehicles and beasts of burden with his first groundbreaking book The Camel and the Wheel. While Bulliet’s arguments for an advent of colder climate as the stimulus for the breeding of the hybrid camels can be debated, his overall thesis is sound and explains why the Seljuk…

From Kenneth's list on The best book on how the nomadic peoples enriched and shaped civilizations across Eurasia (from their perspective).