The Emergence Of Arab Nationalism From The Nineteenth Centurty To 1921

This book sheds light on cultural expressions of Arab Nationalism and the contradictory meanings often attached to it. It presents nationalism as an experienceable set of identity markers – in stories, visual culture, narratives of memory and struggles with ideology. Using case studies, the book transcends a conventional history that reduces nationalism in the Arab lands to a pattern of political rise and decline. It suggests Arabs have constructed an identifiable shared national culture, and it critically dissects conceptions about Arab nationalism as an easily graspable secular and authoritarian ideology modelled on Western ideas and visions of modernity.

"An objective, well-documented work . . . likely to remain a classic source for the general public, researchers, & serious students of the area."-Perspective.

In this new edition Professor Tibi analyses the impact and function of nationalism and its contribution to social and political change in the Third World, taking the rise of nationalism in the Middle East as a historical example. He concentrates on the period after the First World War, when many Arab intellectuals became disillusioned with Britain and France as a result of the occupation of their countries. Professor Tibi's careful study of the writings and influence of Sati' al-Husri illustrates the connection between modern Arab nationalism and nineteenth century German Romantic nationalism, which will be of particular interest to the English reader. Professor Tibi concludes that while nationalism has played a necessary and important role in the movement for national independence in the Middle East, it has since developed into an ideology which seems to obstruct further social and political emancipation. This book will be of particular interest to historians and social scientists as well as to specialists in the area itself.

Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the path to the birth of Arab nationhood. Through extensive archival research, Mestyan examines the collusion of various Ottoman elites in creating this nascent sense of national belonging and finds that learned culture played a central role in this development. Mestyan investigates the experience of community during this period, engendered through participation in public rituals and being part of a theater audience. He describes the embodied and textual ways these experiences were produced through urban spaces, poetry, performances, and journals. From the Khedivial Opera House's staging of Verdi's Aida and the first Arabic magazine to the 'Urabi revolution and the restoration of the authority of Ottoman viceroys under British occupation, Mestyan illuminates the cultural dynamics of a regime that served as the precondition for nation-building in the Middle East. --

Like a great dynasty that falls to ruin and is eventually remembered more for its faults than its feats, Arab nationalism is remembered mostly for its humiliating rout in the 1967 Six Day War, for inter-Arab divisions, and for words and actions distinguished by their meagerness. But people tend to forget the majesty that Arab nationalism once was. In this elegantly narrated and richly documented book, Adeed Dawisha brings this majesty to life through a sweeping historical account of its dramatic rise and fall. Dawisha argues that Arab nationalism--which, he says, was inspired by nineteenth-century German Romantic nationalism--really took root after World War I and not in the nineteenth century, as many believe, and that it blossomed only in the 1950s and 1960s under the charismatic leadership of Egypt's Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir. He traces the ideology's passage from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire through its triumphant ascendancy in the late 1950s with the unity of Egypt and Syria and with the nationalist revolution of Iraq, to the mortal blow it received in the 1967 Arab defeat by Israel, and its eventual eclipse. Dawisha criticizes the common failure to distinguish between the broader, cultural phenomenon of "Arabism" and the political, secular desire for a united Arab state that defined Arab nationalism. In recent decades competitive ideologies--not least, Islamic militancy--have inexorably supplanted the latter, he contends. Dawisha, who grew up in Iraq during the heyday of Arab nationalism, infuses his work with rare personal insight and extraordinary historical breadth. In addition to Western sources, he draws on an unprecedented wealth of Arab political memoirs and studies to tell the fascinating story of one of the most colorful and significant periods of the contemporary Arab world. In doing so, he also gives us the means to more fully understand trends in the region today. Complete with a hard-hitting new and expanded section that surveys recent nationalism and events in the Middle East, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century tells the fascinating story of one of the most colorful and significant periods in twentieth-century Middle Eastern history.

This study attempts to correct the imbalance and, in the process, provides a fascinating interpretation of the rise of the ideology of nationalism within the Arab world. The book focuses on the social and political life of the great notable families of Ottoman Damascus, who, before World War I, played a crucial part in translating the idea into political action.