ABSTRACT
Since antiquity, the Middle East has been a land bridge between Europe and Asia and Europe and Africa. Ancient roads running through this region carried countless armies on campaigns of conquest, as well as pilgrims to the holy sites of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Mecca and Medina. Historically, therefore, the roads and transport systems that developed not only sought the safest and easiest geographical path through often difficult mountain and desert terrain, but they also served another goal. These same roads were important tools for preserving control over a region whose strategic and religious assets were the object of chronic rivalry and contest between regional powers and colonial empires. Particularly in the late 19th and early 20th century, extensive new railroads, asphalt highways and water roads, such as the Suez Canal, were designed and built with an eye to the geo-political needs of European governments or local rulers and dynasties under their protection and sponsorship.
