The Modern Middle East : Revised Edition

Rating:
Summary: Very useful and readable text
Review: I came across this book by chance while searching for other Hourani titles. Hourani is an editor and writes the opening essay; nontheless, I found it to be an invaluable complement to his History of the Arab Peoples which desctibes 13 centuries of history. This volume has the room to cover in greater detail the ideas, customs and culture that accompanied and shaped the historical events. There are excellent essays on the shaping of Arab thought in the late 19th century and the ideological - modern transformation of Turkey/Ottoman Empire at the outset of the 20th century. Other essyas deal with the customs of the serraglio, cinema modern literature and economic affairs. It's truly encyclopedic and I find that the oxford encyclopedia of Islam ed. by Esposito is the volume that more closely approaches it. The essays cover the period considered the modern era (i.e from the French revolution and Napoleon's invasion of Egypt to the present)and features leading scholars' essays. I recommended it to one of my professors to use as a companion volume in his Modern Middle East course.