News from the Middle East is notoriously obsessed with the goings-on in big cities, where the politicians, diplomats, tycoons, television stars and the reporters who write about them tend to live. But poverty, unemployment and authoritarian practice—the drivers of the Arab uprisings of 2011—are often more concentrated in the countryside than in the capital. Rural areas are particularly hard-hit by neoliberal economic policy and the impact of climate change. Middle East Report 272 offers some views from the provinces of the historical forces shaping the region’s future.