top of page

An Introduction to the History of the Middle East in the Modern Period

Course Description

This course aims to introduce students to critical historical processes and themes that have shaped the development of the Middle East from the late Ottoman period until the present. The course will cover some of the major political, social, economic, and cultural transformations, including but not limited to: the transition from Ottoman to colonial rule, the rise of territorial states, various forms of nationalism, inter-Arab politics, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Islamic revival and the jihadi phenomenon.

Grading

Class preparation, attendance, and participation – 15%

Early Term essay – 15%

Final Paper – 70%

Office Hours

Tuesday and Thursday, 16:15 - 17:15

Gilman Building, 421.

1. what is the middle east in the modern period?

John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405 (London, Allen Lane, 2007)
pp. 33- 39

2. What is the Middle East in the Modern Period?

3. Modernity, Tradition, and the Age of Reform

Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream (J. Murray, 2005), Chapters 13 & 14.
John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405 (London, Allen Lane, 2007)

4. Islamic Modernism: al-Afghani and ʿAbduh

Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1789 – 1939 (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 103-192.

5. THE EMERGENCE OF WAHHABISM

Khalid al-Dakhil, "Wahhabism as an Ideology of State Formation," in Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism and the State (Lynne Rienner, 2009) 

David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: IB Tauris, 2006), Preface.

6. Rise of Nationalism; the Decline of Empire

William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 99-124.

7. The Era of the Young Turks and Iranian Constitutionalists

Vanessa Martin, Iran between Islamic Nationalism and Secularism: The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (IB Tauris, 2013). Chapter 1-2-7.

8. wORLD wAR I

Asher Susser and Duygu Atlas, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, 2017), pp. 77-114.

9. the Middle east state system

10. The balfour declaration and the kurds

11. Ataturk and Reza Shah after World War I

12. IsLAmism During the interwar period

Brynjar Lia, The Society of the Muslims Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement, 1928 to 1942 (Ithaca Press, 1998)

13. Mossadegh: Iran and Oil nationalization

14. Nasser and politics of arab nationalism

Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton University Press, 2002), Chapters 4-9.

15. The June 1967 Six Day War and its Aftermath

14. The Lebanese civil war 

Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 1970–1985 (Cornell University Press, 1985)

17. The Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979

18. Kurdish Nationalism

Ofra Bengio, the Kurds of Iraq: Building a State Within a State (Boulder and London Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012)

19. Jihadi salafism

20. Israel, Jordan, and Palestine

Asher Susser, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine: The Two State Imperative (Brandeis University Press, 2010).
Matti Steinberg, In Search of Modern Palestinian Nationhood ( Moshe Dayan Center, 2016)

Final Exam Readings

Stephane Lacroix, Awakening Islam (Harvard University, 2011)

C. Ernest Dawn "The Egyptian Remilitarization of the Sinai, May 1967, "The Journal of Contemporary History 3: 3(July, 1968) 201-224

Fakhreddin Azimi, “The reconciliation of politics and ethics; nationalism and democracy: an overview of the political career of Dr Muhammad Mussadiq,” in Mussadiq, Iranian Nationalism, and Oil (London: I.B. Tauris, Ltd.), W. Roger Louis and James Bill, eds., 47-68.

Michael M. Gunter, “Unrecognized De Facto States in World Politics: The Kurds,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 20:11 (Spring/Summer 2014), 161-179.

Misagh Parsa, "Ideology and Political Action in the Iranian Revolution,"

bottom of page