Horrendous news from the Middle East fills our newspapers and screens every day. How can we begin to understand what drives people to treat each other as they do? "e;Medieval"e; is a word often used. Well-informed commentators analyse political and military issues but give little insight into the cultural and domestic backgrounds of the protagonists."e;Living with Arabs"e; is an account of nine years spent visiting and living among the Bedouin tribes of Petra in southern Jordan; in some ways a world away from the neighbouring war zones. Through insightful accounts of day-to-day life, a world of nobility and simplicity is revealed: so too is a world of violence, gender imbalance, and the significance of Islam. It is a story that begins viewed through rose-coloured spectacles and moves to a gripping realisation of reality. The shocking, the funny, the heart-warming - it is all here.