City University of New York – Graduate Center. Spring 2018. PH.D. PROGRAM IN HISTORY and M.A in Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Middle East and Middle East American Center (MEMEAC). Room:. Course Number: Hist. 88110/MES 73500 Mondays: 6:30 – 8:30 PM. Course Teacher: Simon Davis, [email protected] Office Phone: (718) 289 5677. Modern Imperialism and the Making of the Modern Middle East. This course surveys how interaction with increasingly influential foreign interests, and responses to them, both assimilative and resistant, shaped leading currents in Middle Eastern experience from the late eighteenth century onwards. Themes include imperialism in historical interpretation, perceptions and framings of the region, forms of political, economic, cultural and social change, and in Middle Eastern intra-regional, international and global relations. Each session will feature a discussion on a theme preceded by suggested readings from course texts, related published documents, and specialized scholarly journal articles assigned for discussions on each topic. Students will each complete a research essay chosen from a number of given titles and reading lists, a number of smaller critical exercises and a final examination. Course texts: The following are suggested as empirical companion-primers. Each has its own style and emphases. Cleveland, William, A History of the Modern Middle East, (Boulder, CO; Westview, 2008). Topically wide-ranging, touches usefully on most relevant topics, but is a little woolly on evidentiary specifics, despite its length. [ISBN – 13 9780813340487] Gelvin, James, The Modern Middle East: A History. (Oxford; Oxford U.P., 2008). Accessible, concise, breezy introduction to most principal discussion points, but colloquial, beyond academic limits of acceptability at times. [ISBN- 13 0195167894] Hardy, Roger, The Poisoned Well: Empire and Its Legacy in the Middle East, (Oxford; Oxford U. P., 2016). Journalistic, narrative rather than theoretical but critical and vivid. A useful impressionistic companion to deeper explorations. [ISBN- 9780190623203] Our ten discussion topics will be: 1. The ‘New’ Imperialism and Historical Understanding: Theory, Literature and Debates. Preparatory Readings: (via JSTOR unless otherwise noted) Dueck, Jennifer, ‘The Middle East and North Africa in the Imperial and Post-Colonial Historiography of France’, Historical Journal, 50, 4 (2007). Lenin, Vladimir I., Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, (1917) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1916lenin-imperialism.html Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade,’ Economic History Review, 6, 1 (1953). Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Laurence, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,, (London; Macmillan, 1988), via http://www.maldura.unipd.it/dllags/docentianglo/materiali_oboe_lm/2581_001.pdf 2. Inventing the Middle East: Culture, Commerce, Geopolitics and Imperialist Categorizations of the Region. Preparatory Readings: Khalil, Osamah F. ‘The Crossroads of the World: U.S. and British Foreign Policy Doctrines and the Construct of the Middle East, 1902-2007.’ Diplomatic History 38.2 (2014). Mills, Amy, ‘Critical Place Studies and Middle East Histories: Power, Politics, and Social Change,’ History Compass, 10, 10 (2012): Ze’evi, Dror, ‘Back to Napoleon? Thoughts on the Beginning of the Modern Era in the Middle East,’ Mediterranean Historical Review, 19, 1 (2004). (Via ebscohost.com) Deringil, Selim, " 'They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery': The Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 45, 2 (2003). 3. Exchange Across Oriental Frontiers: Movement, Materialization and the Transformation of Imperial Relationships, 1789-1914. Preparatory Readings: Barak, On, ‘Outsourcing: Energy and Empire in the Age of Coal, 1820–1911,’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 47, 3 (2015). Cain, P. J., ‘Character and Imperialism: The British Financial Administration of Egypt, 1878-1914.’ Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 34, 2 (2006). Cronin, Stephanie, ‘Importing Modernity: European Military Missions to Qajar Iran,’ Comparative Studies in Society & History, 50.1, (2008). Hunter, F. Robert, ‘Tourism and Empire: The Thomas Cook & Son Enterprise on the Nile, 1868-1914,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 40.5, (2004). 4. The First World War as Formative Threshold of the Contemporary Middle East. Preparatory Readings: Aksakal, Mustafa, ‘Holy War Made in Germany? Ottoman Origins of the 1914 Jihad’, War in History, 18, 2 (2011). (via EBSCO host). Burman, John, ‘British Strategic Interests Versus Ottoman Sovereign Rights: New Perspectives on the Aqaba Crisis, 1906,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 37, 2 (2009). Johnson, Robert, ‘The De Bunsen Committee and a Revision of the ‘Conspiracy’ of Sykes–Picot,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 54, 4, (2018). Rosen, Jacob. ‘Captain Reginald Hall and the Balfour Declaration’. Middle Eastern Studies 24, 1 (1988). 5. The Colonialist Moment and Its Discontents; Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1918-1941. Preparatory Readings: Berridge, W.J., ‘Imperialist and Nationalist Voices in the Struggle for Egyptian Independence, 1919-22,’ Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 42.3 (2014): Darwin, John. "An Undeclared Empire: The British in the Middle East, 1918-39,” Journal Imperial and Commonwealth History 27, 2 (May 1999). Satia, Priya, ‘Developing Iraq: Britain, India and the Redemption of Empire and Technology in the First World War’, Past & Present, 197, (2007). (via Project Muse). Thomas, Martin, ‘French Intelligence-Gathering in the Syrian Mandate, 1920-40,’ Middle Eastern Studies 38, 1 (2002). 6. Oil and ‘Corporatist’ Modes of Empire; the Persian Gulf and Global Integration, 1901-1990. Preparatory Readings: DeNovo, John, ‘The Movement for an Aggressive American Oil Policy Abroad, American Historical Review, 61, 4 (1956). Jones, Toby, ‘America, Oil, and War in the Middle East,’ Journal of American History, 99, 1 (2012). Painter, David, ‘Oil and the Marshall Plan,’ Business History Review, 58, 3 (1984). Vitalis, Robert, ‘Black Gold, White Crude: An Essay on American Exceptionalism, Hierarchy, and Hegemony in the Gulf,’ Diplomatic History, 26, 2 (2002). 7. Zionism and Its Consequences in Colonialist and Post-Colonialist Context, 1918-1993. Preparatory Readings: Aaronsohn, Ran, ‘Settlement in Eretz Israel —A Colonialist Enterprise? "Critical" Scholarship and Historical Geography,’ Israel Studies, 1, 2 (1996). Lloyd, David, ‘Settler Colonialism and the State of Exception: The Example of Palestine/Israel,’ Settler Colonial Studies, 2, 1 (2012). Roberts, Nicholas H., ‘Re-Remembering the Mandate: Historiographical Debates and Revisionist History in the Study of Palestine,’ History Compass, 9, 3 (2011). Reuveny, R, ‘Fundamentalist Colonialism: The Geopolitics of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,’ Political Geography, 22, (2003). 8. ‘Contested Space’: the Second World War and its Implications – Britain’s ‘Decline Revival and Fall’, Nationalist Horizons and Superpower Rivalry, 1938-1971. Preparatory Readings: Davis, Simon, ‘The Persian Gulf in the 1940s and the Question of an Anglo-American Middle East’, History, 314, 1 (2010). Franzén, Johan, ‘Losing Hearts and Minds in Iraq: Britain, Cold War Propaganda and the Challenge of Communism, 1945-58,’ Historical Research, 83, 222, (2010). Holt, Maria, ‘Memories of Arabia and Empire: An Oral History of the British in Aden,’ Contemporary British History, 18, 4, (2004). Orkaby, Asher, ‘The Yemeni Civil War: The Final British–Egyptian Imperial Battleground,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 51, 2, (2015). 9. ‘Pax Americana?’ Liberal Internationalism and Reciprocal Neo-Dependency in the Post-War Middle East, 1941-1991. Preparatory Readings: Chamberlin, Paul, ‘A World Restored: Religion, Counterrevolution, and the Search for Order in the Middle East,’ Diplomatic History, 32, 3 (2008). Little, Douglas, ‘A Puppet in Search of a Puppeteer? The United States, King Hussein, and Jordan, 1953- 1970’, International History Review, 17, 3 (1995). Makdisi, Ussama, ‘After Said: The Limits and Possibilities of a Critical Scholarship of U.S.-Arab Relations.’ Diplomatic History, 38, 3 (2014). Odom, William E., ‘The Cold War Origins of U.S. Central Command,’ Journal of Cold War Studies, 8, 2 (2006). 10. The Middle Eastern Encounter with Modern Imperialism: Scholarly, Structural and Ideological Legacies in the Era of Globalization. Preparatory Readings: Aydin, Cemil, ‘Beyond Civilization: Pan-Islamism, Pan-Asianism and the Revolt against the West,’ Journal of Modern European History, 4, 2 (2006). Choueiri, Youssef M., ‘The Middle East: Colonialism, Islam and the Nation State,’ Journal of Contemporary History, 37, 4 (2002). Cole, Juan and Kandioto, Deniz, ‘Nationalism and the Colonial Legacy in the Middle East and Central Asia: Introduction,’ International Journal of Middle East Studies, 34, 2 (2002). Huntington, Samuel P., ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, 72, 3 (1993). Learning Objectives: students will understand the main events, context, currents and debates on outside power and influence in the formation of the modern Middle East. They will write an academic paper of about 4000 words on a selected topic, producing an original analytical synthesis based on current leading scholarship. They will also evaluate and discuss the context and significance of selected primary documents in translation, developing this into an appreciation of historiographic