[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Thank you for the good information.
Do you know of any books that cover the smaller tribes in the mid east?
I love history but even though I have traveled to many countries most of my trips were either new crew starts
or to take care of problems.
Most of my meager knowledge is from reading or talking
to workers on the crews I visited. So I sometimes get
skewed information from these people or information that they think would impress me.

[Cronos]

Hmmm... well, I would tell you to steer clear from the kooky sites on the internet -- there are many. The Best books are the travel books that deal with the people of the region and don't bother about the politics. Can't really recommend one particular book though Jawaharlal Nehru's book on Central Asia is a good starting point

[Cronos]

Do you know of any books that cover the smaller tribes in the mid east?

And do you mean the Middle east as in the lands from Iraq to Egypt? Or do you mean The Indian continent-central Asia- (which tends to be one continuous culture landscape)? Or do you mean the CAucasus? Each of these are pretty different tribally except for Iran which straddles all three regions