Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean

by Leila Fawaz (Editor), C. A. Bayly (Editor), Robert Ilbert (With)

Overview

Between the 1890s and 1920s, cities in the vast region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean were experiencing political, social, economic, and cultural changes that had been set in motion at least since the early nineteenth century. As the age of pre-colonial empires gave way to colonial and national states, there was a sense that a particular liberalism of culture and economy had been irretrievably lost to a more intolerant age.

Avoiding such dichotomies as East/West and modernity/tradition, this book provides a comparative analysis of contested versions of the concept of modernity. The book examines not only the "high" culture of scholars and the literati, but also popular music, the visual arts, and journalism. The contributors incorporate discussion of the way in which the business in both commodities and ideas was conducted in the increasingly cosmopolitan cities of the time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231504775
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Lexile:	1640L (what's this?)
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Leila Tarazi Fawaz is a professor of history in the School of Arts and Sciences and a professor of diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, both at Tufts University.

C. A. Bayly is professor of history at Cambridge University and fellow of St. Catharine's College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Connected World of Empires, by C. A. Bayly and Leila Fawaz
Section 1. Trade Routes and Patterns of Exchange from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
Trade and Port Cities in the Red Sea - Gulf of Aden Region in the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, by Michel Tuchscherer
A Divided Sea: The Cairo Coffee Trade in the Red Sea Area during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, by André Raymond
The Red Sea Ports during the Revolution in Transportation, by Colette Dubois
Section II. Cities as Centers of Exchange
Port Cities as Nodal Points of Change: The Indian Ocean, 1890s - 1920s, by Kenneth McPherson
Haifa at the Crossroads: An Outpost of the New World Order, by May Seikaly
Islamic Universalism and Regional Identity in Turn-of-the-Century Basra: Sheikh Ibrahim al-Haidari's Book Revisited, by Hala Fattah
Section III. Survival of the Inland Cities
Damascus and the Pilgrim Caravan, by Abdul-Karim Rafeq
Aspects of Economy and Society in the Syrian Provinces: Aleppo in Transition, 1880-1925, by Peter Sluglett
Section IV. Cultural Production and Diffusion
Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 1880-1914, by C. A. Bayly
Izmir 1922: A Port City Unravels, by Resat Kasaba
Negotiating Colonial Modernity and Cultural Difference: Indian Muslim Conceptions of Community and Nation, c. 1878-1914, by Ayesha Jalal
Section V. Politics Race and Community
The Tangled End of Istanbul's Imperial Supremacy, by Engin Deniz Akarli
Racial Readings of Empire: Britain, France, and Colonial Modernity in the Mediterranean and Asia, by Susan Bayly
Section VI. Representing the Modern
Alexandria: A Mediterranean Cosmopolitan Center of Cultural Production, by Robin Ostle
Between Politics and Literature: Journals in Alexandria and Istanbul at the End of the Nineteenth Century, by Elisabeth Kendall
Printing and Urban Islam in the Mediterranean World, 1890-1920, by Juan Cole
Section VII. Comparisons and Connections
Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim: Theory and History, by Sugata Bose

What People are Saying About This

John Voll

A landmark in the scholarship... The collaboration of European and North American scholars in this volume creates a major intellectual achievement. Read as a whole, the diverse studies in this volume combine to create a significant contribution to transcending the conceptual confines of area studies and more traditional approaches to history and the social sciences.

— John Voll, Georgetown University

Eugene Rogan

This book breaks new ground in binding the worlds of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Mediterranean with contributions from some of the most illustrious South Asian and Middle Eastern scholars. Turning on the axis of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the contributors transcend disciplines in a fusion of history, cultural studies and political economy that sets multiculturalism in exciting new directions.

— Eugene Rogan, Oxford University

Editorial Reviews

The volume is a major contribution to the growing field of comparative history... Modernity and Culture, although focused on the Middle East and South Asia, will be of broad interest to students and teachers of world history for its explicit content and the stimulation it provides toward fresh conceptions and presentations of two major world regions in a global context.

— Frank F. Conlon

History: Reviews of New Books

The totality of the essays in Modernity & Culture validate the need for cross-regional analysis.

MESA Bulletin

The guiding vision behind this collection is profound, and the overall quality of the articles is excellent.

American Historical Review

The contributors to Modernity and Culture capture many of the important trends that shaped the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Arab Studies Journal - Jennifer Derr

With its complex approach to the problems under study and its innovative interpretations, this collection represents an important stimulus.

Mediterranean Historical Review - Svetla Ianeva

This book can be regarded as a landmark achievement in expanding the scope of historical studies... It will provide a most valuable starting point for a new type of comparative studies.

School of Oriental and African Studies - Ulrike Freitag

The volume is a major contribution to the growing field of comparative history...Modernity and Culture, although focused on the Middle East and South Asia, will be of broad interest to students and teachers of world history for its explicit content and the stimulation it provides toward fresh conceptions and presentations of two major world regions in a global context.

History: Reviews of New Books - Frank F. Conlon

This book can be regarded as a landmark achievement in expanding the scope of historical studies... It will provide a most valuable starting point for a new type of comparative studies.

— Ulrike Freitag

School of Oriental and African Studies

This book can be regarded as a landmark achievement in expanding the scope of historical studies... It will provide a most valuable starting point for a new type of comparative studies.

— Ulrike Freitag

School of Oriental & African Studies

With its complex approach to the problems under study and its innovative interpretations, this collection represents an important stimulus.

— Svetla Ianeva

Mediterranean Historical Review

The contributors to Modernity and Culture capture many of the important trends that shaped the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

— Jennifer Derr

Arab Studies Journal