Books like A History of Modern Oman: 100 fan favorites

By Jeremy Jones, Nicholas Ridout,

Here are 100 books that A History of Modern Oman fans have personally recommended if you like A History of Modern Oman. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Celestial Bodies

Christiane Bird Author Of The Sultan's Shadow: One Family's Rule at the Crossroads of East and West

From my list on the intriguing country of Oman.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most writers, Iā€™m intoxicated by stories, and when I first learned about the all-but-unknown country of Omanā€”once a major maritime power in the Indian Oceanā€”and its involvement in the East African slave trade, I was hungry to discover more. That ā€œmoreā€ soon catapulted me into an extraordinary world filled with romance, beauty, violence, cruelty, and larger-than-life characters I had never heard of before. I was eager to share that world with others and so wrote this book. I am also the author of two other books about the Middle East and am deeply interested in writing about the regionā€™s people, history, and culture, rather than its politics.

Christiane's book list on the intriguing country of Oman

Christiane Bird Why did Christiane love this book?

In this lyrical novel, winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize (the first novel in Arabic to do so), the Omani writer Altharthi captures the rich complexity of a country caught between the past and the future.

Her characters embody various aspects of Omanā€™s historyā€”its slave trade, its maritime prowess, its close-knit village life, its rapid modern developmentā€”while at the same time debunking Western stereotypes about Arab women, society, and culture.

I visited Oman in early 2023 and everywhere I went, I saw Alharthiā€™s novel brought to life. Time and memory, religion and magic, poetry and proverbsā€”all swirl hypnotically together in this book, brilliantly translated by Marilyn Booth. 

By Jokha Alharthi, Marilyn Booth (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Celestial Bodies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and national bestseller is ā€œan innovative reimagining of the family saga . . . Celestial Bodies is itself a treasure house: an intricately calibrated chaos of familial orbits and conjunctions, of the gravitational pull of secrets" (The New York Times Book Review).

In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.

These threeā€¦


Book cover of Sultan in Oman

Amelia Dalton Author Of Pages from My Passport

From my list on the lives of those who pushed the boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I ā€˜fellā€™ into being at sea by chance, through my fatherā€™s insistence I join him on a Scottish fishing boat for a week. I discovered I adored exploring unknown islands and lonely beaches, discovering wildlife and resilient small communities. In the 1990ā€™s a female working amongst fishermen and commercial shipping was unknown, it was a wholly male, chauvinistic world. Using these skills I found a job being paid to explore ā€“ a dream job, pioneering but frequently lonely and dangerous. It resulted in my expanding the range and world of small expedition ships into areas with no infrastructure, unexplored and uncharted, lonely, empty coasts from the Arctic to Singapore. 

Amelia's book list on the lives of those who pushed the boundaries

Amelia Dalton Why did Amelia love this book?

In this entertaining book Jan Morris crosses the Oman desert travelling as one of the Sultanā€™s entourage. 

I know Oman well, having visited long before the country was ā€˜openā€™ to tourism. I have slept on just a blanked on the sand with the huge bowl of Arabian stars sliding across a black sky above me so the delightful prose brings this all to life again. The early days of the oil business, whilst unfashionable these days are historic, the descriptions are vivid and highly amusing.

Desert life, campfires, camels, and Bedouin are all colourfully brought to life, with descriptions of the superb mud forts and sands so frequent in the mountains and sands of Oman.

By Jan Morris,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Sultan in Oman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1955 the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, southeast of Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Sea, was a truly medieval Islamic State, shuttered against all progress under the aegis of its traditionalist and autocratic ruler. But it was also nearly the end of an imperial line, for in those days the British Government was still powerful in Arabia. Rumors of subversion and the intrigues of foreign powers mingled with the unsettling smell of oil to propel the sultan on a royal progress across the desert hinterland. It was an historic journey--the first crossing of the Omani desert by motorcar. Janā€¦


Book cover of The Imamate Tradition of Oman

Christiane Bird Author Of The Sultan's Shadow: One Family's Rule at the Crossroads of East and West

From my list on the intriguing country of Oman.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most writers, Iā€™m intoxicated by stories, and when I first learned about the all-but-unknown country of Omanā€”once a major maritime power in the Indian Oceanā€”and its involvement in the East African slave trade, I was hungry to discover more. That ā€œmoreā€ soon catapulted me into an extraordinary world filled with romance, beauty, violence, cruelty, and larger-than-life characters I had never heard of before. I was eager to share that world with others and so wrote this book. I am also the author of two other books about the Middle East and am deeply interested in writing about the regionā€™s people, history, and culture, rather than its politics.

Christiane's book list on the intriguing country of Oman

Christiane Bird Why did Christiane love this book?

In this scholarly yet quite readable deep dive into Omanā€™s history, Wilkinson, an Oxford professor and former oil executive, explores the countryā€™s two traditions: its closed, isolated, tribal interior, which until the 1950s was governed by an elected Iman of Ibadi Islam; and its more secular, multiethnic coastal region, which operated as a major maritime power for over 1,000 years.

I was especially interested to learn about the disastrous effects of Western interference in the regionā€”which still reverberate todayā€”and rival oil companiesā€™ battles with traditional Omani leaders to gain control of the countryā€™s oil reserves. 

By John Craven Wilkinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Imamate Tradition of Oman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

At the core of this book is an attempt to explain a conflict in Oman in the 1950s and 1960s between two claimants to authority: the Imam of the Ibadi sect in the interior and the Sultan with his capital at Muscat on the coast. The crisis, precipitated by two rival oil companies, acquired wider dimensions because the Sultan was supported by the British, whilst the Imam was eventually backed by Saudi Arabia. In his analysis of the roots of this conflict John Wilkinson traces the themes of regional identity, tribal organization and political authority over some 1200 years ofā€¦


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Book cover of Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink

Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink by Ethan Chorin,

Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages ofā€¦

Book cover of Women and Community in Oman

Christiane Bird Author Of The Sultan's Shadow: One Family's Rule at the Crossroads of East and West

From my list on the intriguing country of Oman.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most writers, Iā€™m intoxicated by stories, and when I first learned about the all-but-unknown country of Omanā€”once a major maritime power in the Indian Oceanā€”and its involvement in the East African slave trade, I was hungry to discover more. That ā€œmoreā€ soon catapulted me into an extraordinary world filled with romance, beauty, violence, cruelty, and larger-than-life characters I had never heard of before. I was eager to share that world with others and so wrote this book. I am also the author of two other books about the Middle East and am deeply interested in writing about the regionā€™s people, history, and culture, rather than its politics.

Christiane's book list on the intriguing country of Oman

Christiane Bird Why did Christiane love this book?

In 1979 anthropologist Eickelman, together with her husband and 19-month-old daughter, took up residency in Hamra, a small village on the edge of the Jabal al-Akhdar mountains in Omanā€™s interior.

Here she befriended the village women, witnessed their daily lives and traditions, and learned about how they were coping with the modernization rapidly overtaking their society. The women she describes are self-confident, reserved, thoughtful, and politeā€”much like the women I met while traveling in Oman.

Eickelmanā€™s book is a valuable record of a disappearing world.

By Christine Eickelman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Women and Community in Oman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Before 1970 Oman was one of teh more isolated countries on the Arab peninsula. The growth of the oil economy during the seventies, however, has brought rapid change to the small towns and villages that make up the country.
In Women and Community in Oman Chritine Eickelman captures the tone and feel of this desert culture on the verge of substantial, and probably irreversible, change. During 1979 and 1980 she lived in Hamra, an oasis of 2,500 persons and the capital of the Abriyin tribe. Situated on the western edge of the Jabal al-Akhdar region of inner Oman, this wasā€¦


Book cover of A Shout in the Ruins

S.D. Livingston Author Of A Queen's Revenge

From my list on feeling the power of hope against impossible odds.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m an accidental historian, one that stumbled over a love of history in spite of myself. In school, history was all just dates and placesā€”not the kind of thing to inspire a kid that loved stories about people, not dusty old battles. But then a funny thing happened on the way to an English degree. A few history electives suddenly seemed way more appealing than another round of Austen, and led me to a BA History with Distinction. The first half of the twentieth century is a favorite period, but I say bring on the Renaissance and Viking ships too!

S.D.'s book list on feeling the power of hope against impossible odds

S.D. Livingston Why did S.D. love this book?

This book is a gut punch of straight-up prose that reads like pure poetry. The story begins during the convulsions of the American Civil War, and tracks a line directly from the 1860s to the 1950s. This is no dry history lesson though. Presidents and generals donā€™t rate a mention and the heroes are ordinary people. And thatā€™s where the novel shines: it proves that profound thoughts can be expressed in plain language, and the author delivers them here with powerful simplicity. A Shout in the Ruins is an absolute gem of a story that should not be missed.

By Kevin Powers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Shout in the Ruins as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Sultanate of Oman overlooks one of the most strategic waterways in the Middle East: the Strait of Hormuz. Sharing the guardianship of the Strait with Iran, Oman's position is of key importance to the security of the entire Gulf, which holds a large portion of the world's oil resources. In a 1970 palace coup, Sultan Qaboos ibn Sa'id overthrew the repressive and reclusive rule of his father and embarked on a program of modernization. Oman became one of the success stories of the developing world, instituting a modern educational system, creating a modern infrastructure, becoming an oil exporter, andā€¦


Book cover of Bahari: Recipes From an Omani Kitchen and Beyond

Edy Massih Author Of Keep It Zesty: A Celebration of Lebanese Flavors & Culture from Edy's Grocer

From my list on diverse Middle Eastern cultures and cuisines.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Lebanese-born, New York-based Caterer, Chef, and Owner of Edyā€™s Grocer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Born and raised in Lebanon, I have a passion for Middle Eastern food, culture, and, cookbooks. Growing up with a grandmother who never wrote one recipe down, it's been a journey to nail each recipe she used to make. When I moved to America, it was so hard to find good Middle Eastern cookbooks. Fast forward to 2024, a plethora of talented chefs have written books to help transport me back to Lebanon, sharing our Middle Eastern cultures, flavors, and heritage in such a beautiful way. I am proud of these cookbooks representing the Middle East.

Edy's book list on diverse Middle Eastern cultures and cuisines

Edy Massih Why did Edy love this book?

What Dina Macki did with this book is beautiful, specifically the visuals and how she showcases the food. Many people, myself included, donā€™t know much about Omani food specifically, and this book dives deep into the unique food, culture, and region, including beautiful photos taken locally throughout her travels and mini-history lessons.

This is the first Omani cookbook ever written, and she did it well.

By Dina Macki,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bahari as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With honesty and curiosity, British-born Omani-Zanzibari chef Dina Macki explores the unique foodscape of Oman, in the first Omani cookbook to be written by an Omani chef.

Bahari, meaning "ocean" in Swahili, is a culinary exploration of the rich flavors and history of Omani cuisine, a food culture shaped by boundless coastlines and complex maritime history, with origins and influences spanning Pakistan, Iran, India, the Swahili coast, and Portugal.

In this distinctive cookbook, Dina Macki travels across Oman and Zanzibar, unearthing regional delicacies and recreating the food of her heritage. With more than 100 recipes for meat, fish, vegetables, homemadeā€¦


Book cover of Walking Each Other Home Again: A young Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger, 1960's, and her return 30 years later

Christine Herbert Author Of The Color of the Elephant

From my list on serving in the Peace Corps.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a returned U.S. Peace Corps volunteer who served as a community health worker and educator in Zambia from 2004-2006. My highly-anticipated debut memoir, The Color of the Elephant: Memoir of a Muzungu, a Zola Award finalist, releases January 2022. As an avid reader of adventurous, fish-out-of-water tales, Iā€™ve read dozens of memoirs by fellow Peace Corps volunteers whoā€™ve served all around the world from the 1960s to the present day. These are my top picks based on literary merit, engaging storytelling, and pure heart.

Christine's book list on serving in the Peace Corps

Christine Herbert Why did Christine love this book?

Truly a ā€œtwo for the price of oneā€ read! This tale begins in the early days of the Peace Corps, where newlyweds Laurie and Rich are assigned volunteer posts in Niger (pronounced nee-zher), Laurie as a public health worker, and Rich on an agricultural assignment at a peanut cooperative. Packed with lively prose and riveting tales of close calls, humorous misunderstandings, finding oneā€™s feet, discovering meaning in the midst of suffering, and the bewildering feeling of displacement upon arriving back in the States, the first half of the story encompasses all the earmarks of a ā€œclassicā€ Peace Corps experience.

After 30 years, Laurieā€”now remarried, mother of grown children, and retired from an active career in liberal politicsā€”travels back to Niger to reconnect with loved ones. Despite the chafing between this American womanā€™s independent spirit and the restrictive patriarchal Muslim society, along with the inevitable modernization of the humble agrarianā€¦

By Laurie Oman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Walking Each Other Home Again as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this delightful and insightful memoir of a mid-century American girl coming of age as a new bride in a remote village in Niger, West Africa, Laurie Oman generously shares a unique place and time that will live on in readers' hearts forever. We are right there with her as she fumbles and faux pas her way into the role of a valued member of the community as a health educator, unprepared emergency midwife, and ultimately trusted friend. So deep were the bonds from her two-year Peace Corps stay in the 1960s, that thirty years later she was invited toā€¦


Book cover of The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places

Nick Hunt Author Of Outlandish: Walking Europeā€™s Unlikely Landscapes

From my list on edeserts that capture their beauty and loneliness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nick Hunt is a walker and writer about the landscapes and cultures of Europe. He is the author of Walking the Woods and the Water, Where the Wild Winds Are (both finalists for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year), and a work of gonzo ornithology, The Parakeeting of London. His latest book, Outlandish, is an exploration of four of the continentā€™s strangest and most unlikely landscapes: arctic tundra in Scotland, primeval forest in Poland and Belarus, Europeā€™s only true desert in Spain, and the grassland steppes of Hungary.

Nick's book list on edeserts that capture their beauty and loneliness

Nick Hunt Why did Nick love this book?

Long fascinated by the accounts of travellers drawn to the worldā€™s arid zones, as if by a strange magnetism, William Atkins immerses himself in deserts from Oman to Australia, Kazakhstan to the United States. The book is both a study of extreme environments and a deeply personal journey that often touches on the political: the Australian chapter becomes an excoriating attack on the British governmentā€™s use of the desert as a nuclear testing ground, which devastated Aboriginal communities. There are also some extremely funny parts, as when Atkins ends up in the debauchery of Nevadaā€™s Burning Man festival, surely the most reluctant and awkward festival-goer who has ever graced its playa.

By William Atkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Immeasurable World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL WRITING AWARD 2019

One third of the earth's land surface is desert, much of it desolate and inhospitable.

What is it about this harsh environment that has captivated humankind throughout history?

Travelling to five continents over three years, William Atkins discovers a realm that is as much internal as physical. From the contested borderlands of the USA to Australia's nuclear test zones, via Nevada's riotous Burning Man festival and the ancient monasteries of Egypt, he illuminates the people, history, nature and symbolism of these remarkable but often volatile places.


Book cover of The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia: Networks of Malay-Indonesian and Middle Eastern 'Ulama' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Author Of Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education, and Islam

From my list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an American-trained Indonesian anthropologist, teacher, writer, researcher, and academic nomad who has lived and taught at a Saudi university. I have travelled since childhood. When I was a kid or teenager, I journeyed to various places and cities for schooling away from my home village (and parents) in the isolated highlands of Central Java. I also travelled for shepherding my goats which I did after school. So, I love to travel, learn many things from my travel, and as a teacher of Anthropology of Travel, I have always been fascinated by literature on travel whatever its forms ranging from pilgrimage and nomadism to migration and tourism.   

Sumanto's book list on Islam, travel, and travelers in Arabia

Sumanto Al Qurtuby Why did Sumanto love this book?

This is an extremely fine book that traces and discusses the origins or intellectual roots of Islamic renewal and reformism in Indonesia (and the Malay world in general). What makes this book special is that, among others, the author used rare academic sources (e.g., Arabic biographic dictionaries that have never before been analyzed or utilized as research materials) to reconstruct the history of Indonesiaā€™s Islamic reformism. The book shows that an orthodox form of Islam in Southeast Asia was the product of intellectual and religious networks between Muslim societies in the archipelago and the Malay-Indonesian Islamic scholars in the Haramain (Mecca and Medina) who transmitted Islamic scholarships, knowledge, and discourses to them since the seventeenth century. 

By Azyumardi Azra,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Origins of Islamic Reformism in Southeast Asia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Islamic renewal and reformism is an ongoing process which is commonly thought to have started only in the twentieth century. Professor Azra's meticulous study, using sources from the Middle East itself, shows how scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were reconstructing the intellectual and socio-moral foundation of Muslim societies. Drawing on Arabic biographic dictionaries which have never before been analysed or used as research materials, Professor Azra illuminates a previously inaccessible period of history to show the development of the Middle Eastern heritage in the Indonesian archipelago.

The reader can trace the formation and expression of Indonesian Islam andā€¦


Book cover of In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam

Christina Ward Author Of Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat - An American History

From my list on the hidden history of America.

Why am I passionate about this?

For me, history is always about individuals; what they think and believe and how those ideas motivate their actions. By relegating our past to official histories or staid academic tellings we deprive ourselves of the humanity of our shared experiences. As a ā€œpopular historianā€ I use food to tell all the many ways we attempt to ā€œbeā€ American. History is for everyone, and my self-appointed mission is to bring more stories to readers! These recommendations are a few stand-out titles from the hundreds of books that inform my current work on how food and religion converge in America. Youā€™ll have to wait for Holy Food to find out what Iā€™ve discovered.

Christina's book list on the hidden history of America

Christina Ward Why did Christina love this book?

The religious history of America has long overlooked the unique spiritual life of Black Americans. Dr. Stephen Finley has been at the forefront of a new generation of researchers and historians chronicling the incredibly rich history of Black New Religious Movements in the United States and how theyā€™ve influenced both popular Black culture and all-American culture. In and Out of This World peels back closely guarded beliefs and practices and gives readers the context to understand them not as fringe lunacy but a logical endpoint to a diverse and robust cosmology. Dr. Finley does what the best historians doā€”makes us care about people while giving us the information to understand their ideas and beliefs.

By Stephen C. Finley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In and Out of This World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With In and Out of This World Stephen C. Finley examines the religious practices and discourses that have shaped the Nation of Islam (NOI) in America. Drawing on the speeches and writing of figures such as Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Warith Deen Mohammad, and Louis Farrakhan, Finley shows that the NOI and its leaders used multiple religious symbols, rituals, and mythologies meant to recast the meaning of the cosmos and create new transcendent and immanent black bodies whose meaning cannot be reduced to products of racism. Whether examining how the myth of Yakub helped Elijah Muhammad explain the violence directedā€¦


Book cover of Celestial Bodies
Book cover of Sultan in Oman
Book cover of The Imamate Tradition of Oman

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Interested in Oman, Islam, and postcolonialism?

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