Content area
Full text
SOCIAL CONDITIONS A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev, by Clinton Bailey. Foreword by William W. Hallo. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2004. xxi + 432 pages. Gloss, to p. 464. Notes to p. 469. Bibl. to p. 472. Index to p. 478. $75.
A growing body of literature examines the cultural, economic, political, and social dynamics that bear upon the Bedouin of the Middle East. The present work fills a very important void, providing, for the first time, a comprehensive corpus of Bedouin proverbs from the Sinai and Negev regions. The author has over 35 years' experience with the Bedouin, which is amply evident in this important collection. Drawing on an impressive professional background as consultant on Bedouin culture for the BBC, the British Museum as well as on his social advocacy and journalist background that has involved work with myriad Bedouin communities this book is a reliable source of what is probably most of the communities' most significant proverbs.
An introductory chapter outlines the desert context that informs so much of Bedouin life, and hence the proverbs themselves. "There would be no culture of desert survival if," Bailey writes, "throughout the ages, Bedouin had not chosen to remain in...