Alex Lubin and Marwan M. Kraidy (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469628844
- eISBN:
- 9781469628868
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469628844.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic ...
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In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of internationalizing American studies approaches by including non-U.S. scholars, but rather to explore how cultural forms circulate transnationally and are shaped by, and contribute to, international geopolitical contexts. With an introduction by the editors, these essays focus on the cultural politics of the U.S. engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitics of American involvement with the uprisings of the Arab Spring, making a crucial intervention in the growing subfield of transnational American Studies. Featuring a diverse list of contributors from the United States, the Arab world, and beyond, America Studies Encounters the Middle East analyzes Arab-American relations by looking at the War on Terror, pop culture, and the influence of the American hegemony in a time of revolution.Less
In American Studies, attention is shifting to American engagements with the Middle East, especially in the aftermath of war in Iraq and broad American economic influence. As protest against economic inequality, social discrimination, and political repression has risen around the world, recent Arab uprisings have attracted special focus. In this volume, Alex Lubin and Marwan Kraidy curate a new collection of essays that offer a reappraisal of the field of American Studies at the end of the “American Century.” The goal of this volume is not merely to continue the ongoing process of internationalizing American studies approaches by including non-U.S. scholars, but rather to explore how cultural forms circulate transnationally and are shaped by, and contribute to, international geopolitical contexts. With an introduction by the editors, these essays focus on the cultural politics of the U.S. engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitics of American involvement with the uprisings of the Arab Spring, making a crucial intervention in the growing subfield of transnational American Studies. Featuring a diverse list of contributors from the United States, the Arab world, and beyond, America Studies Encounters the Middle East analyzes Arab-American relations by looking at the War on Terror, pop culture, and the influence of the American hegemony in a time of revolution.
Alan Mikhail
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199315277
- eISBN:
- 9780199369232
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199315277.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This book tells the story of Ottoman Egypt’s political, social, economic, and environmental transformations between 1517 and 1882 through the history of human-animal relations. Its main contention is ...
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This book tells the story of Ottoman Egypt’s political, social, economic, and environmental transformations between 1517 and 1882 through the history of human-animal relations. Its main contention is that changing relationships between humans and animals were central to the transformation of Egypt from an early modern society to a nineteenth-century centralizing state. Egypt in this period moved from being an early modern world characterized primarily by intense human-animal interactions to one in which this relationship was no longer constitutive of commercial and social life. The results were a fundamental reordering of political, economic, and ecological power. This book thus explains one of the most important historical transitions of the last 500 years through the history of changes to one of the most consequential of human relationships—those with animals. Three classes of animals take center stage: livestock, dogs, and charismatic megafauna. The history of human relations with each group illuminates different aspects of Ottoman Egypt’s transformations. Livestock explain changes in the nature of rural labor; dogs elucidate changes in understandings of urban sanitation, health, and the human body; and charismatic megafauna index changes in global trade and economic modes of exchange. As nearly all early modern agrarian societies between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries experienced some form of intense transformation involving the commercialization and modernization of their economies, the Egyptian example thus offers a robust template for understanding how changes in human-animal relations impacted the global transition of early modern societies to more modern forms of governance, economy, and society.Less
This book tells the story of Ottoman Egypt’s political, social, economic, and environmental transformations between 1517 and 1882 through the history of human-animal relations. Its main contention is that changing relationships between humans and animals were central to the transformation of Egypt from an early modern society to a nineteenth-century centralizing state. Egypt in this period moved from being an early modern world characterized primarily by intense human-animal interactions to one in which this relationship was no longer constitutive of commercial and social life. The results were a fundamental reordering of political, economic, and ecological power. This book thus explains one of the most important historical transitions of the last 500 years through the history of changes to one of the most consequential of human relationships—those with animals. Three classes of animals take center stage: livestock, dogs, and charismatic megafauna. The history of human relations with each group illuminates different aspects of Ottoman Egypt’s transformations. Livestock explain changes in the nature of rural labor; dogs elucidate changes in understandings of urban sanitation, health, and the human body; and charismatic megafauna index changes in global trade and economic modes of exchange. As nearly all early modern agrarian societies between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries experienced some form of intense transformation involving the commercialization and modernization of their economies, the Egyptian example thus offers a robust template for understanding how changes in human-animal relations impacted the global transition of early modern societies to more modern forms of governance, economy, and society.
Osama Abi-Mershed
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804769099
- eISBN:
- 9780804774727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804769099.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Between 1830 and 1870, French army officers serving in the colonial Offices of Arab Affairs profoundly altered the course of political decision-making in Algeria. Guided by the modernizing ideologies ...
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Between 1830 and 1870, French army officers serving in the colonial Offices of Arab Affairs profoundly altered the course of political decision-making in Algeria. Guided by the modernizing ideologies of the Saint-Simonian school in their development and implementation of colonial policy, the officers articulated a new doctrine and framework for governing the Muslim and European populations of Algeria. This book shows the evolution of this civilizing mission in Algeria, illustrates how these forty years were decisive in shaping the principal ideological tenets in French colonization of the region, and offers a rethinking of nineteenth-century French colonial history. It reveals not only what the rise of Europe implied for the cultural identities of non-elite Middle Easterners and North Africans, but also what dynamics were involved in the imposition or local adoptions of European cultural norms, and how the colonial encounter impacted the cultural identities of the colonizers themselves.Less
Between 1830 and 1870, French army officers serving in the colonial Offices of Arab Affairs profoundly altered the course of political decision-making in Algeria. Guided by the modernizing ideologies of the Saint-Simonian school in their development and implementation of colonial policy, the officers articulated a new doctrine and framework for governing the Muslim and European populations of Algeria. This book shows the evolution of this civilizing mission in Algeria, illustrates how these forty years were decisive in shaping the principal ideological tenets in French colonization of the region, and offers a rethinking of nineteenth-century French colonial history. It reveals not only what the rise of Europe implied for the cultural identities of non-elite Middle Easterners and North Africans, but also what dynamics were involved in the imposition or local adoptions of European cultural norms, and how the colonial encounter impacted the cultural identities of the colonizers themselves.
Noah Haiduc-Dale
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748676033
- eISBN:
- 9780748684304
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676033.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Christians in British Mandate Palestine (1917-1948) comprised a significant minority of the Arab population, but it is commonly assumed that they were junior partners in the Palestinian nationalist ...
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Christians in British Mandate Palestine (1917-1948) comprised a significant minority of the Arab population, but it is commonly assumed that they were junior partners in the Palestinian nationalist movement, or perhaps even wary of the movement altogether. The period was tense, and Arab Christians did struggle to define their community in the face of Zionist immigration, British colonial policies, and the rise of both regional pan-Islamic ideologies and Palestinian nationalism. This book focuses on the relationship between Arab Christians and the nationalist movement as the British Mandate unfolded throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It also looks at the nature of interreligious religious relations between Christians and Muslims. The book uses major events of the period as a lens through which to examine Christian efforts to define their place in Palestinian society while being conscious of variations (denominational, socioeconomic and geographical, for instance) and debates within the diverse Arab Christian community. Despite such variations, trends among individual Christian behaviours and beliefs, as well as those of Christian organizations (both religious and social in nature), challenge the prevailing assumption that Arabs were prone to communalism or sectarianism. Instead, they were as likely as their Muslim compatriots to support nationalism. When social pressure led Christians to identify along communal lines, they did so in conjunction with a stronger dedication to nationalism.Less
Christians in British Mandate Palestine (1917-1948) comprised a significant minority of the Arab population, but it is commonly assumed that they were junior partners in the Palestinian nationalist movement, or perhaps even wary of the movement altogether. The period was tense, and Arab Christians did struggle to define their community in the face of Zionist immigration, British colonial policies, and the rise of both regional pan-Islamic ideologies and Palestinian nationalism. This book focuses on the relationship between Arab Christians and the nationalist movement as the British Mandate unfolded throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It also looks at the nature of interreligious religious relations between Christians and Muslims. The book uses major events of the period as a lens through which to examine Christian efforts to define their place in Palestinian society while being conscious of variations (denominational, socioeconomic and geographical, for instance) and debates within the diverse Arab Christian community. Despite such variations, trends among individual Christian behaviours and beliefs, as well as those of Christian organizations (both religious and social in nature), challenge the prevailing assumption that Arabs were prone to communalism or sectarianism. Instead, they were as likely as their Muslim compatriots to support nationalism. When social pressure led Christians to identify along communal lines, they did so in conjunction with a stronger dedication to nationalism.
Donald Miller
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520234925
- eISBN:
- 9780520929142
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520234925.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
A remarkable view of how geopolitics affects ordinary people, this book documents the lives of Armenians in the last two decades. Based on intimate interviews with 300 Armenians, it brings together ...
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A remarkable view of how geopolitics affects ordinary people, this book documents the lives of Armenians in the last two decades. Based on intimate interviews with 300 Armenians, it brings together firsthand testimony about the social, economic, and spiritual circumstances of Armenians during the 1980s and 1990s, when the country faced an earthquake, pogroms, and war. The book is a story of extreme suffering and hardship, a searching look at the fight for independence and a complex portrait of the human spirit. A companion to Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide by the same authors, it focuses on four groups of people: survivors of the earthquakes that devastated northwestern Armenia in 1988; refugees from Azerbaijan who fled Baku and Sumgait because of pogroms against them; women, children, and soldiers who were affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh; and ordinary citizens who survived several winters without heat because of the blockade against Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. The authors' narrative situates these accounts contextually and thematically, but the voices of individuals remain paramount.Less
A remarkable view of how geopolitics affects ordinary people, this book documents the lives of Armenians in the last two decades. Based on intimate interviews with 300 Armenians, it brings together firsthand testimony about the social, economic, and spiritual circumstances of Armenians during the 1980s and 1990s, when the country faced an earthquake, pogroms, and war. The book is a story of extreme suffering and hardship, a searching look at the fight for independence and a complex portrait of the human spirit. A companion to Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide by the same authors, it focuses on four groups of people: survivors of the earthquakes that devastated northwestern Armenia in 1988; refugees from Azerbaijan who fled Baku and Sumgait because of pogroms against them; women, children, and soldiers who were affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh; and ordinary citizens who survived several winters without heat because of the blockade against Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. The authors' narrative situates these accounts contextually and thematically, but the voices of individuals remain paramount.
Hillel Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520252219
- eISBN:
- 9780520933989
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520252219.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Inspired by stories he heard in the West Bank as a child, the author of this biook uncovers here a hidden history central to the narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict but for the most part ...
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Inspired by stories he heard in the West Bank as a child, the author of this biook uncovers here a hidden history central to the narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict but for the most part willfully ignored until now. This book was initially published in Israel to high acclaim and intense controversy and tells the story of Arabs who, from the very beginning of the Arab-Israeli encounter, sided with the Zionists and aided them politically, economically, and in security matters. Based on newly declassified documents and research in Zionist, Arab, and British sources, the book follows Bedouins who hosted Jewish neighbors, weapons dealers, pro-Zionist propagandists, and informers and local leaders who cooperated with the Zionists, and others to reveal an alternate history of the mandate period with repercussions extending to this day. The book illuminates the Palestinian nationalist movement, which branded these “collaborators” as traitors and persecuted them; the Zionist movement, which used them to undermine Palestinian society from within and betrayed them; and the collaborators themselves, who held an alternate view of Palestinian nationalism. This book offers a new view of history from below and raises profound questions about the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict.Less
Inspired by stories he heard in the West Bank as a child, the author of this biook uncovers here a hidden history central to the narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict but for the most part willfully ignored until now. This book was initially published in Israel to high acclaim and intense controversy and tells the story of Arabs who, from the very beginning of the Arab-Israeli encounter, sided with the Zionists and aided them politically, economically, and in security matters. Based on newly declassified documents and research in Zionist, Arab, and British sources, the book follows Bedouins who hosted Jewish neighbors, weapons dealers, pro-Zionist propagandists, and informers and local leaders who cooperated with the Zionists, and others to reveal an alternate history of the mandate period with repercussions extending to this day. The book illuminates the Palestinian nationalist movement, which branded these “collaborators” as traitors and persecuted them; the Zionist movement, which used them to undermine Palestinian society from within and betrayed them; and the collaborators themselves, who held an alternate view of Palestinian nationalism. This book offers a new view of history from below and raises profound questions about the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Amira K. Bennison (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265697
- eISBN:
- 9780191771897
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265697.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This volume explores how rulers in medieval Iberia and the Maghrib presented their rule and what strategies they adopted to persuade their subjects of their legitimacy. It focuses on the Naṣrids of ...
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This volume explores how rulers in medieval Iberia and the Maghrib presented their rule and what strategies they adopted to persuade their subjects of their legitimacy. It focuses on the Naṣrids of Granada and the Marīnids of Morocco who both ruled from the mid-thirteenth to the later fifteenth century. One of the book's main arguments is that the legitimating strategies of these monarchs developed out of a common political culture that straddled the straits of Gibraltar. This culture was mediated by constant transfers of people, ideas and commodities across the straits and a political historiography in which deliberate parallels and comparisons were drawn between Iberia and North Africa. The book challenges a tendency to see the Iberian and North African cultural and political spheres as inherently different and, implicitly, as precursors to later European and African identities. While several chapters in the volume do flag up contrasts in practice, they also highlight the structural similarities in the Naṣrid and Marīnid approach to legitimation in this period. The volume is divided into several sections, each of which approaches the theme of legitimation from a separate angle. The first section contains an introduction to the theme as well as analyses of the material and intellectual background to discourses of legitimation. The next section focuses on rhetorical bids for legitimacy such as the deployment of prestigious genealogies, the use of religiopolitical titles, and other forms of propaganda. That is followed by a detailed look at ceremonial and the calculated patronage of religious festivals by rulers. A final section grapples with the problem of legitimation outside the environs of the city, among illiterate and frequently armed populations.Less
This volume explores how rulers in medieval Iberia and the Maghrib presented their rule and what strategies they adopted to persuade their subjects of their legitimacy. It focuses on the Naṣrids of Granada and the Marīnids of Morocco who both ruled from the mid-thirteenth to the later fifteenth century. One of the book's main arguments is that the legitimating strategies of these monarchs developed out of a common political culture that straddled the straits of Gibraltar. This culture was mediated by constant transfers of people, ideas and commodities across the straits and a political historiography in which deliberate parallels and comparisons were drawn between Iberia and North Africa. The book challenges a tendency to see the Iberian and North African cultural and political spheres as inherently different and, implicitly, as precursors to later European and African identities. While several chapters in the volume do flag up contrasts in practice, they also highlight the structural similarities in the Naṣrid and Marīnid approach to legitimation in this period. The volume is divided into several sections, each of which approaches the theme of legitimation from a separate angle. The first section contains an introduction to the theme as well as analyses of the material and intellectual background to discourses of legitimation. The next section focuses on rhetorical bids for legitimacy such as the deployment of prestigious genealogies, the use of religiopolitical titles, and other forms of propaganda. That is followed by a detailed look at ceremonial and the calculated patronage of religious festivals by rulers. A final section grapples with the problem of legitimation outside the environs of the city, among illiterate and frequently armed populations.
Dana Sajdi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804785327
- eISBN:
- 9780804788281
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804785327.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history ...
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This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history book, a chronicle of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Examining the “life and work” of Ibn Budayr, the book uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and identifies a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. In addition to offering a microhistory of the barber and his work, this book discusses the social and literary aspects of nouveau literacy within the context of a changing social, political, and urban topography in the eighteenth-century Levant. Nouveau literacy is about the emergence of authority among various social groups as a result of new material and cultural wealth. Like the barber, the other nouveau literates use their chronicles to display their improved positions and to navigate a new social order. Finally, the book examines a later edition of the barber's history by the nineteenth-century scholar, Muḥammad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī (d. 1900), to show how the editorial interventions by a figure of al-Nahḍa (Arab Renaissance) served to silence the barber's voice.Less
This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history book, a chronicle of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Examining the “life and work” of Ibn Budayr, the book uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and identifies a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. In addition to offering a microhistory of the barber and his work, this book discusses the social and literary aspects of nouveau literacy within the context of a changing social, political, and urban topography in the eighteenth-century Levant. Nouveau literacy is about the emergence of authority among various social groups as a result of new material and cultural wealth. Like the barber, the other nouveau literates use their chronicles to display their improved positions and to navigate a new social order. Finally, the book examines a later edition of the barber's history by the nineteenth-century scholar, Muḥammad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī (d. 1900), to show how the editorial interventions by a figure of al-Nahḍa (Arab Renaissance) served to silence the barber's voice.
Christopher Phillips
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300217179
- eISBN:
- 9780300222173
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217179.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This book provides an analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war. Most accounts of Syria's brutal, ...
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This book provides an analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war. Most accounts of Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war focus on a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the escalating violence. The book argues instead that the international dimension was never secondary but that Syria's war was, from the very start, profoundly influenced by regional factors, particularly the vacuum created by a perceived decline of U.S. power in the Middle East. This precipitated a new regional order in which six external protagonists — the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar — have violently competed for influence, with Syria a key battleground. Drawing on a plethora of original interviews, the book constructs a new narrative of Syria's war. Without absolving the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, the book untangles the key external factors which explain the acceleration and endurance of the conflict, including the West's strategy against ISIS. It concludes with some insights on Syria and the region's future.Less
This book provides an analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria's ongoing civil war. Most accounts of Syria's brutal, long-lasting civil war focus on a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the escalating violence. The book argues instead that the international dimension was never secondary but that Syria's war was, from the very start, profoundly influenced by regional factors, particularly the vacuum created by a perceived decline of U.S. power in the Middle East. This precipitated a new regional order in which six external protagonists — the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar — have violently competed for influence, with Syria a key battleground. Drawing on a plethora of original interviews, the book constructs a new narrative of Syria's war. Without absolving the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime, the book untangles the key external factors which explain the acceleration and endurance of the conflict, including the West's strategy against ISIS. It concludes with some insights on Syria and the region's future.
Julia Phillips Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199340408
- eISBN:
- 9780199388882
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199340408.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History, History of Religion
Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms ...
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Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839–1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Throughout this period, Jews remained little more than an afterthought in imperial politics. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet—as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. This book charts this dramatic reversal, following the changing position of Jews in the empire over the course of half a century.Less
Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839–1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Throughout this period, Jews remained little more than an afterthought in imperial politics. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet—as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. This book charts this dramatic reversal, following the changing position of Jews in the empire over the course of half a century.
Dwelling in the Archive
The Ottoman Age of Exploration
Palestinian Politics after the Oslo Accords
The Culture of Sectarianism
Living with Colonialism
Colonial Land Policies in Palestine, 1917–1936
Cross-Cultural Encounters and Conflicts
Cultures in Conflict
