2,000-year history of Middle East in one book

Besides Peter Mansfields' A History of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis' one-book The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Year can also serve to deepen and also broaden non'-specialists' understanding of the region 'that would be very newsworthy for many years to come. With the foundational knowledge provided by scholars like Mansfields and Lewis, 'we can digest better news from the Middle East on global television and international radio programmes as well as newspapers.