The great cities of the Middle East and North Africa have long attracted the attention and interest of historians. With the discovery and wider use over the last few decades of the Islamic court records and Ottoman administrative documents, our knowledge of Middle Eastern cities between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries has vastly expanded. Drawing upon a treasure trove of documents and using a variety of methodologies, the contributors succeed in providing a significant overview of the ways in which Middle Eastern cities can be studied, as well as an excellent introduction to current literature in the field, affording us a foundational volume that enriches our understanding of society in the late Ottoman and colonial periods. Contributors: Edmund Burke III, Leila Fawaz, Bernard Hourcade, Robert Ilbert, Dina Rizk Khoury, Gudrun Krämer, Abdul-Karim Rafeq, Sarah D. Shields, Peter Sluglett, Sami Zubaida.
The Urban Social History of the Middle East, 1750–1950
Edited by
Peter Sluglett
338 pp.
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774163296
For sale only in the Middle East
$24.95
Related products
Beyond the Exotic
Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies
Edited by Amira al-Azhary SonbolMost manifestations, research has accepted stereotypical images of Muslim women, treating their outward such as veiling, as passive and oppressive. Muslim women have been depicted as different, and by exoticizing (orientalizing) them—or Islamic society in general—“they” have been dealt with outside of general women’s history and regarded as having little to contribute to the writing of world history or to the life of their sisters worldwide. By approaching widely used sources with different questions and methodologies, and by using new or little-used research (with much primary research), this book redresses these deficiencies. Scholars revisit and reevaluate scripture and scriptural interpretation; church records involving non-Muslim women of the Arab world; archival court records dating from the present back to the Ottoman period; and the oral and material culture and its written record, including art and architecture, oral history, textbooks, Sufi practices, and the politics of dress. By deconstructing the past, these scholars offer fresh perspectives on women’s roles and aspirations in Middle East societies. Contributors: Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Sheila S. Blair, Randi Deguilhem, Mamoun Fandy, Richard Freeland, Fatima Zohra Guechi, Nelly Hanna, Howayda al-Harithy, Mervat F. Hatem, Bernard Heyberger, Valerie J. Hoffman, Haifaa Khalafallah, Ramadan al-Khowli, Patricia Mihaly Nabti, Lisa Pollard, Mona Russell, Elyse Semerdjian, Selçuk Aksin Somel, Amira El-Azhary Sonbol, Denise A. Spellberg, Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Judith E. Tucker, Fariba Zarinebaf, Madeline Zilfi.
...read more
Paperback
562 pp.15.5X23.5cm
$29.95
Anthropology in Egypt, 1900–67: Culture, Function, and Reform
Cairo Papers Vol. 33, No. 2
Nicholas S. HopkinsAnthropology as a discipline came to Egypt around 1900, as foreign anthropologists reported home on the culture they found. Gradually the intellectual approach was influenced by the functionalist school, stressing that a society consists of interlocking parts. As Egyptians took the lead in anthropology, in the 1930s, the discipline entered into the debate about the need to reform Egyptian society and culture especially in the rural areas, against a general background of functionalism. This approach dominated through the 1960s, when there was a break in Egypt because of the Six-Day War and in world anthropology because of the emergence of new intellectual models. This study traces the evolution of anthropology in Egypt through the stories of its practitioners such as Blackman, Galal, Evans-Pritchard, Hocart, Abbas Ammar, Hamid Ammar, Berque, Abou Zeid, el Hamamsy, Uways, and their contemporaries, showing their challenges and accomplishments.
...read more
27 March 2015
Paperback
180 pp.14.2X21.6cm
$19.95
Civil Society Exposed
The Politics of NGOs in Egypt
Maha AbdelrahmanIs the concept of civil society relevant to social and political change? What is the role of its most well-known agents, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), in promoting emancipatory projects? Maha Abdelrahman analyses the empirical case of Egyptian ‘civil society’ in order to ascertain whether the experience of civil society organisations, and of NGOs in particular, validates the contention prevalent in academic and policy circles that civil society is the main engine for social and political transformation. The author concludes that civil society, far from constituting this engine, is a politically contested terrain characterised by authoritarian and repressive tendencies.
...read more
Paperback
256 pp.11 tables
15X23cm
$27.50
Copts at the Crossroads
The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt
Mariz TadrosIn the light of the escalation of sectarian tensions during and after Mubarak’s reign, the predicament of the Arab world’s largest religious minority, the Copts, has come to the forefront. This book poses such questions as why there has been a mass exodus of Copts from Egypt, and how this relates to other religious minorities in the Arab region; why it is that sectarian violence increased during and after the 2011 Revolution, which epitomized the highest degree of national unity since 1919; and how the new configuration of power has influenced the extent to which a vision of a political order is being based on the principles of inclusive democracy. The book examines the relations among the state, the Church, Coptic citizenry, and civil and political societies against the backdrop of the increasing diversification of actors, the change of political leadership in the country, and the transformations occurring in the region. An informative historical background is provided, and new fieldwork and statistical data inform a thoughtful exploration of what it takes to build an inclusive democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt.
...read more
15 June 2013
Paperback
320 pp.15X23cm
$29.95