Caliphs and Merchants: Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700–950). By Fanny Bessard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 400 pp. Illustrations, maps. Hardcover, $115.00. ISBN: 978-0-198-85582-8

Bessard does not merely follow the political periodization of the rise and fall of dynasties but sees institutional change beginning after 700 CE driven by elite behavior and attitudes—its patronage system above all, the dynamism of urban centers, and the reform of coinage—as the more important drivers of change. For the Near East, Bessard sees not decline or even stagnation (an heir to the “Oriental despotism” shibboleth that separates European from Near Eastern history) but a new picture drawn from extensive archaeological work and illuminated by fresh readings of the literary and annalistic sources. In her analysis, the reimagination of marketplaces in urban settings, urban, monetary reforms, the “islamification” of daily life and practices all produced significant economic change.