CHAPTER 1: THE RISE OF CIVILIZATION
A region of dry grasslands and fertile river plains, the Middle East was the natural home to the first agriculture, and then to the first civilizations.
The cradle of farming...
The Middle East is a huge area, with many different kinds of climate and landscape. Large parts are covered by desert or grassland; elsewhere there are highlands and mountains covered by forests. Running through all these zones are long rivers, especially the Tigris and Euphrates in
Mesopotamia, and the Nile in
Egypt.
