This groundbreaking contribution to a more comprehensive view of the region in a post-September 11th world, is the first introductory textbook on the modern Middle East to focus on 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.
Ilan Pappé 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 from new historiographical trends and takes a critical approach to conventional state- and nation-centred historiographies
- includes case studies, debates, maps, photos, an up-to-date bibliography and a glossarial index.
Accessible and original, The Modern Middle East is essential introductory reading for students on history or politics courses, as well as for journalists and those working in the region.
'An important survey of the vital and much-neglected cultural and social history of the region.' – John Chalcraft, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK
'In his expansive survey of Middle Eastern history over the last century, Ilan Pappe questions modernization as the best framework for understanding the history and seeks to provide an alternative that devotes much-needed attention to the ways in which non-elite groups were affected by, and participated in, the dramatic political, social, economic and cultural transformations of the period.' – Zachary Lockman, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University, USA
'Pappe directly challenges the negative stereotype of the Middle East as an undemocratic and pre-modern zone. He does this in an engaging manner, weaving his accessible narrative through chapters on political and economic history, rural history, popular music, the print and visual media, histories of Middle Eastern women, Islam and the region in the globalised 21st Century.' – The Times Higher Education Supplement
