Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World Paperback / softback

Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period.

Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land.

These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice.

As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events.

The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East.

This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.