From late Antiquity to the age of motorized transportation, pack camels largely replaced wheeled vehicles in North Africa, the Middle East, and Iran. Bulliet's book is devoted to exploring the causes, circumstances, and consequences of this fact.

Spanning millennia from the domestication of the camel (perhaps in the third millenium BC) to the 20C, the Old World from Morocco to Mongolia, with an excursus to Australia were camels were introduced in the 19C, and disciplines from veterinary medicine to philology, the book gives the impression of being the work of a gentleman scholar, unconcerned with academic boundaries and happily citing the memoranda of colonial officers next to scientific papers and the Bible. One may at times find his conclusions shakily supported, and wonder about the representativeness of anecdotes, but the camel ride is certainly wild, scenic, and thought-provoking.

"His sympathy for his subject, combined with a searching mind, keen historical imagination, and an enormous amount of work on materials ranging from anthropology to zoology, has enabled him to produce a truly excellent book" (IJMES)