The Modern Middle East

by PappT,Ilan

• ISBN13: 9780415214087
• ISBN10: 0415214084
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-07-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This is the first introductory textbook on the modern Middle East to foreground the urban, rural, cultural and women's histories of the region over its political and economic history. Distancing himself from more modernizationist approaches, the author is concerned with the ideological question of whom we investigate in the past rather than how we investigate the past. This is a ground-breaking contribution to a more comprehensive view of the region in a post-September 11th world. Ilan Pappe begins his narrative at the end of the First World War with the Ottoman heritage, and concludes at the end of the twentieth century with the political discourse of Islam. The Modern Middle East: * includes a carefully argued introduction which discusses the methodology used in the textbook * provides a thematic and comparative approach to the region, helping students to see the peoples of the Middle East and the developments that affect their lives as part of a larger world * includes insights gained fromnew historiographical trends and takes a critical approach to conventional state- and nation-centered historiographies * includes case studies, debates, maps, photos, an up-to-date bibliography and a glossarial index. Accessible and original,The Modern Middle Eastwill be essential reading for introductory students on history or politics courses as well as for journalists and those working in the region.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Introduction: Whose 'modern times'?	p. 1
Theories of modernization	p. 2
Alternative views?	p. 9
Political history	p. 15
The Ottoman heritage	p. 15
The colonial heritage	p. 19
The shaping of the map, 1918-45	p. 21
The great evacuation, 1945-62	p. 27
Under the shadow of Palestine, 1967-87	p. 29
A unipower world, 1987-2000	p. 35
Economic history	p. 39
The urge to transform, 1850-1918	p. 41
Integrating into the world economy, 1918-45	p. 43
Hope and its demise, 1945-72	p. 45
Openness and its price, 1974-91	p. 49
The waning magic of oil	p. 52
The rural history of the Middle East in the twentieth century	p. 59
The fast pace of change: the end of self-subsistence and autonomy	p. 61
The colonial invasion of rural space	p. 68
Under the yoke or blessing of independence	p. 74
The anatomy of failure	p. 77
The balance sheet of the Green Revolution	p. 88
The slow pace of history: recurring patterns of rural and tribal life	p. 93
The history of the clan and the family	p. 93
Ruralization versus urbanization: the transformation of values, hierarchies and social structures	p. 97
The case of Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi	p. 98
The transformation of tribal space in the twentieth century	p. 99
The ambivalent history of tribalism and kinship	p. 105
Conclusions	p. 110
Urban history	p. 113
Questions of categorization	p. 115
The demographic factor	p. 117
The working class and labour	p. 122
The history of trade unionism and communism: the first half of the twentieth century	p. 124
The Egyptian case	p. 126
The unique case of Iraq	p. 127
Missed opportunities in Palestine	p. 130
Trade unionism under independence: the case of North Africa	p. 131
The historiographical debate over trade unionism	p. 133
The history of the urban middle class: the late nineteenth century	p. 135
The politicization of the notables and middle class: effendis and pashas	p. 135
A changing political culture: the loss of the multicultural city	p. 139
Urban political culture under independence	p. 141
New faces to the Middle Eastern city	p. 145
The preoccupation with security	p. 148
Living under the threat of nationalization	p. 151
Survival mechanisms and networks	p. 155
The new face of the city: the history of the unemployed	p. 157
Popular culture: music, dance and poetry	p. 163
Music in the twentieth century	p. 165
The Egyptian trio	p. 166
The Ra'i heritage	p. 173
The modern history of the ud	p. 174
Dancing with the living and the dead	p. 176
The poetics of the century	p. 179
The history of the written word	p. 183
The press revolution, 1815-1900	p. 184
The novel: early beginnings	p. 187
The place of Naguib Mahfouz	p. 189
The short novel	p. 192
Motifs of the twentieth century	p. 193
Freedom of speech and writing	p. 197
The language of culture	p. 202
Theatre, cinema, radio and television	p. 207
The stage	p. 207
The history of film	p. 215
The electronic media revolution	p. 218
Histories of Middle Eastern women	p. 223
The construction of an autonomous space	p. 225
Men in the service of feminism	p. 232
'Women worthies'	p. 239
Nationalism and feminism	p. 245
Women and political Islam	p. 254
Economic change and the position of women	p. 262
The many faces of Islam in the twenty-first century	p. 269
Political Islam as an intellectual discourse	p. 270
The personal space of Islamic traditions	p. 281
Iran: the exception or the rule?	p. 285
The globalized Middle East in the twenty-first century: three final aspects	p. 291
Prospects for a new economic future?	p. 291
The perils of over-urbanization: the basis for future unrest and revolutions?	p. 293
The struggle for the soul: the new media and the challenge of political Islam	p. 296
The future: saints, libraries and satellites	p. 299
Notes	p. 303
Bibliography	p. 320
Picture credits	p. 333
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