This introduction provides a broad overview of the literature on caravan trade and economic history of the Middle East up to the nineteenth century. It is first a survey of existing literature on caravan trade with an emphasis on the role of caravans in the creation of regional markets. It moves then to challenging the paradigm of Silk Roads and argues against the idea of a homogeneous decline of overland trade since the seventeenth century. This introduction helps in bringing back Bedouin, camels, steppe and desert as historical actors by discussing sources and scholarly debates (the relationship between nomads and the Ottoman State in particular).