In an era of increasing interaction between the United States and the countries of the Middle East it has become ever more important for Americans to understand the social forces that shape Middle Eastern cultures. Based on years of his own field research and the ethnographic reports of other scholars anthropologist Philip Carl Salzman presents an incisive analysis of Middle Eastern culture that goes a long way toward explaining the gulf between Western and Middle Eastern cultural perspectives.Salzman focuses on two basic principles of tribal organization that have become central principles of Middle Eastern lifebalanced opposition each group of whatever size and scope is opposed by a group of equal size and scope and affiliation solidarity always support those closer against those more distant. On the positive side these pervasive structural principles support a decentralized social and political system based upon individual independence autonomy liberty equality and responsibility.