Foreword<br >3Y EDWIN O. REISCHAUER<br > The Foreign Policy Library is designed to be a series of authorita-<br >ive， penetrating， and readable analyses of the historical and cultural<br >)aekgrounds of certain key countries or areas in the world， their cur-<br >~ ent conditions and problems， and the American interest and involve-<br >nent in them. William R. Polk， former President of the Adlai Ste-<br >tenson Institute of International Relations， has met these high aims<br >n The Arab World， a new edition of his well-known book The Unitea<br >~tates and the Arab World.<br > While this work was first published in 1965， revised and expanded<br >:ditions followed in 1969， 1975， and now again in 1980. The speed<br >vith which revisions have followed one another is a measure of the<br >~ apid changes in the region and the astounding rise in importance to<br >he United States and tile whole world of tile grave problems that<br >:enter in the portion of the Arab world from Libya and the Sudan<br >hrough Egypt， the "fertile crescent，" and the Arabian Peninsula，<br >vhich is the area Professor Polk covers in this volume.<br > This region is quite large in area， but relatively small in popula-<br >ion. Except for the teeming Nile Valley， people are sparsely scattered<br >hroughout its arid wastes. All together they constitute less than a for-<br >:ieth of the human race. Still， the problems of this region and its peo-<br >31e are gigantic in their impact on the rest of the world. No other<br >:omparable region or body of people is the source of greater di-<br >emmas for all mankind.<br >