Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class

Connects the question of modernity to the formation of the Arab middle class. This book explores the rise of a middle class of liberal professionals during the 20th century in the Arab Middle East, and the ways its members created civil society, and new forms of politics, bodies of thought, and styles of engagement with colonialism. In this innovative book, Keith Watenpaugh connects the question of modernity to the formation of the Arab middle class. The book explores the rise of a middle class of liberal professionals, white-collar employees, journalists, and businessmen during the first decades of the twentieth century in the Arab Middle East, and the ways its members created civil society, and new forms of politics, bodies of thought, and styles of engagement with colonialism. Discussions of the middle class have been largely absent from historical writings about the Middle East. Watenpaugh fills this lacuna by drawing on Arab, Ottoman, British, American and French sources and an eclectic body of theoretical literature and shows that within the crucible of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, World War I, and the advent of late European colonialism, a discrete middle class took shape. It was defined not just by the wealth, professions, possessions, or the levels of education of its members, but also by the way they asserted their modernity.

Author(s): Keith David Watenpaugh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2006
Pages: 356
Categories: History