HIST 2915A: Modern Middle East History
Fall 2024
Instructor: Hussam Ahmed
Course Description:
This course will give you the tools necessary to think, read and write critically about the modern Middle East. We will be dealing with the political, social and cultural history of the region following the end of the First World War to the Arab Spring.
The course starts with a survey of the Ottoman Empire that dominated much of the region from the 16th Century. We then have a close look at the shifting balance of power with Europe and the rise of European imperialism in the 19th Century. Next, we have a close look at how the First World War drew the map of the region as we study the formation of new states and their development in the interwar period. We then follow a number of key issues that have dominated 20th-Century Middle Eastern history. Among them are, Zionism, Israel and the Palestinian struggle for nationhood; Nasserism and Pan-Arabism; the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian Revolution and the rise of political Islam; the politics of oil and the Gulf War. We end the course with a look at the unprecedented wave of revolutionary activity that engulfed the region in the 21st Century.
Organization:
This class will meet in person. The class will be organized into two-hour lectures and weekly discussion groups.