Mecca both residents and pilgrims. Mecca's culture has been affected by the large number of pilgrims that arrive annually, and thus boasts a rich cultural heritage. As a result of the vast numbers of pilgrims coming to the city each year, Mecca has become by far the most diverse city in the Muslim world. In contrast to the rest of Saudi Arabia, and particularly Najd, Mecca has, according to "The New York Times", become "a striking oasis" of free thought and discussion and, also, of "unlikely liberalism" as "Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken
The Country and the City 306). Chapter Eight of "Raymond Williams: Hope and Defeat in the Struggle for Socialism" "A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times." The Country and the City The Country and the City is a book of cultural analysis by Raymond Williams which was first published in 1973. Coming from the Welsh border, a village in the Black Mountains, Raymond Williams found that the images of rural life taught at the University of Cambridge did not match what he had seen. As an academic at Cambridge, he studied and examined the contradiction, along