Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860-1920
/ Philip Shukry Khoury
- First published 1983, First paperback edition 2003
- Cambridge University Press; 1983
- 168p; 22x15cm
This book focuses on the social and political life of the great notable families of Ottoman Damascus, who, before WW1, played a crucial part in translating the idea of Arab nationalism into political action.
No idea has captured the imagination or expressed the hopes of Arabs in the twentieth century as has Arab nationalism, and perhaps no subject has received so much attention from historians of the Middle East. But, while many historians have explored its intellectual sources, few have considered the social and political environment in which Arab nationalism evolved as an ideological movement. 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. Dr Khoury explains how such long-term factors as the Ottoman reformation, European economic expansion and agrarian commercialization in Syria encouraged rival and socially differentiated networks of influential families to merge into a cohesive upper class. Under the umbrella of a reinvigorated Ottoman central authority, this class of landowners and bureaucrats produced a new urban leadership, which dominated local politics after 1860.
English
9780521533232
83-5289
1850-1920
DS92-99 History of Asia- Syria Ottoman rule الدولة العثمانية Arab Nationalism القومية العربية