Being Modern In the Middle East (ebook)

Argumento de Being Modern In the Middle East (ebook)

"Watenpaugh's style is clear and effective. The book is a considerable achievement that will benefit both Middle East specialists and others who wrestle with themes of nation, empire, minorities, and modernity."--Donald Malcolm Reid, International History Review

"This is an original study that should be of great interest both to historians of the Middle East and to scholars working on the evolution of 'modern' lifestyles and modes of expression globally."--James Jankowski, Historian

"Keith David Watenpaugh has broken ground with this study of the middle class in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Aleppo. . . . Being Modern in the Middle East is an insightful and thorough narration of Aleppo's middle class that paves the way to further understand and question the ever shifting dynamics and implications of modernity in the Middle East and beyond."--Sherene Seikaly, Arab Studies Journal

"It is refreshing to read nowadays a book that does not simply repudiate modernity, but rather explores the anticipations and reactions of the studied agents themselves towards modernity . . . Being Modern in the Middle East is a superb work of cultural, political, and social history instructed political-sociological questions pertaining to modernity, civil society, and the middle class in the context of the Middle Eastern region especially its East-Mediterranean cities in the Ottoman, colonial and post-colonial era. The book, which alludes to an ample number of theoretical issues and whose forte is its scrutiny of history, will be of interest both to those concerned with the 'middle class' as a social phenomenon and with the Middle East as a modernizing region."--Uri Ram, Middle East Journal

"Watenpaugh has utilized the available sources well for his study, including French, Ottoman and British archives. He approaches his history rather in the manner of the French Annales school in that he also makes good use of contemporary newspaper articles, speeches, autobiographies and advertisements to construct a picture of contemporary society."--Derek Hopwood, Journal of Islamic Studies

"This is an original piece of scholarship that addresses interesting questions about an understudied and important aspect of Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean history. The product of a lively mind fed by broad reading, the book treats the reader to moments of wonderful insight based on new research."--Elizabeth F. Thompson, University of Virginia

"A remarkable book. It represents a major departure in the current historiography of the Middle East and is a significant contribution to the field."--Peter Sluglett, University of Utah

"In sum, Being Modern in the Middle East is an important, interesting, and instructive contribution to the history of ideas, while also being social and cultural history at its best. It is the laudable result of years of research. Overall, it reflects the author's empathy with his subject, a quality that definitely contributes to the depth of his insights and conclusions."--EyalZisser, H-Net Reviews0Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Note on Translation and Transliteration xiii
Abbreviations and Acronymns xv

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: Modernity, Class, and the Architectures of Community 1 CHAPTER TWO: An Eastern Mediterranean City on the Eve of Revolution 31

SECTION I: Being Modern in a Time of Revolution: The Revolution of 1908 and the Beginnings of Middle-Class Politics (1908-1918) 55

CHAPTER THREE: Ottoman Precedents (I): Journalism, Voluntary Association, and the "True Civilization" of the Middle Class 68
CHAPTER FOUR: Ottoman Precedents (II): The Technologies of the Public Sphere and the Multiple Deaths of the Ottoman Citizen 95

SECTION II: Being Modern in a Moment of Anxiety: The Middle Class Makes Sense of a "Postwar" World (1918-1924)--Historicism, Nationalism, and Violence 121

CHAPTER FIVE: Rescuing the Arab from History: Halab, Orientalist Imaginings, Wilsonianism, and Early Arabism 134
CHAPTER SIX: The Persistence of Empire at the Moment of Its Collapse: Ottoman-Islamic Identity and "New Men" Rebels 160
CHAPTER SEVEN: Remembering the Great War: Allegory, Civic Virtue, and Conservative Reaction 185

SECTION III: Being Modern in an Era of Colonialism: Middle-Class Modernity and the Culture of the French Mandate for Syria (1925-1946) 210

CHAPTER EIGHT: Deferring to the A "yan :The Middle Class and the Politics of Notables 222
CHAPTER NINE: Middle-Class Fascism and the Transformation of Civil Violence: Steel Shirts, White Badges, and the Last Qabaday 255
CHAPTER TEN: Not Quite Syrians: Aleppo's Communities of Collaboration 279
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Coda: The Incomplete Project of Middle-Class Modernity and the Paradox of Metropolitan Desire 299

Select Bibliography 309
Index 317