"The structured approach provides consistency that is often lacking in multi-author works. Surprisingly, no comparable biographical dictionary has been published since the early 1990s...because of the popular interest in the Mideast and North Africa, large public libraries and smaller college or university libraries might want this set."
--Library Journal, March 15, 2008
"This is a well-crafted encylopedia, intended to show how ordinary people live in the Middle East and North Africa."
--ARBA, 2008