Pictured: Gamal Abdel Nasser
The Arabs: A History By Eugene Rogan (Allen Lane, £25)
There are many myths about the middle east. And one that remains surprisingly popular in this country is that Britain still has significant influence there—a view often reinforced by Arab sentimentalisation of British power. For those still wedded to this view, Eugene Rogan’s The Arabs: A History will provide pause for thought. It sets the scene for understanding the contemporary middle east through a beautifully crafted tour d’histoire spanning five centuries. It marks the beginning of the modern age for Arabs as the point when the Ottomans conquered the Mamluk Empire in 1517. This watershed event began the first foreign rule of Arabs since the rise of Islam in the early 7th century. The Arab response to conquest was pragmatic. It focused not on their subjugation under foreign rule specifically, but on the administrative levers of Ottoman power such as levels of taxation and questions of law and order. Shared religion, and a view of Islamic universalism, most likely played into this.
Rogan’s reader is taken through the conquests and re-conquests of the major centres of Arab civilisation, culminating in two centuries of Ottoman rule from the Balkans around the Mediterranean across North Africa and extending to the Arabian peninsula. The first major reversal of Ottoman power comes about with Russian support for Balkan nationalists and the European powers moving to dismember the empire after its defeat. Both Britain and France do well out of the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Britain claims Cyprus so France is offered Tunisia to retain the balance of power. Yet the balance is not preserved as Britain finds itself occupying Egypt not from choice but necessity in the face of an uprising, thus precipitating the European powers’ “scramble for Africa.”
As we move from the age of empire into the 20th century, Rogan concentrates both on events and the voices of players on the ground who lend authenticity to the account: the 18th-century barber in Damascus, who meticulously records all going-ons around him, the early 19th-century Egyptian reformist cleric who sails for France to educate himself on Europe, or later the mixed heritage Lebanese interpreter who accompanies Yasser Arafat to his historic UN speech in 1978. The stories they bear witness to are at the same time unremarkable for the period covered yet unusual for the weaving of different narratives into a unified landscape.
Rogan warns his reader that he inevitably concentrates more on some countries than others—the contemporary Arab world comprises 21 states—but in so doing, is meticulously fair in privileging the centres of power according to their importance to events which shaped the region. Egypt, Syria and the Levant—the cradle of Arab civilisation—are thoroughly explored. The demise of Ottoman rule in north Africa and its giving way to European imperialism takes us into the 20th century. It also shows up the myth created by pan-Arabism that the Arabs are a single homogeneous people—the Egyptians did not consider themselves Arab until well into Nasser’s pan-Arabism of the 1950s, reserving that title for the people of the Hijaz or Arabian peninsula, or Bedouins.
It is the early 20th century where the roots of the turmoil prevailing in the Arab world today is seen most vividly. While the Soviet Union and the US are the more malign influences of the recent past, it is Britain and France (the mandate powers) who come out worst. The end of the first world war sees Woodrow Wilson’s strong support for self-determination, holding out the possibility of independence, which is denied or forestalled by western powers time and again. The legacy of the 1917 Balfour declaration’s impossible promise to create a Jewish homeland, while retaining the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” is with us nearly 100 years later. France’s handling of the Algerian war of independence and both powers’ roles in the postwar struggles for self-determination in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt make it inevitable for anti-westernism to take hold. Nasser’s pan-Arabism seems to be the natural response in a quest for homegrown political identity but ultimately gives way to authoritarianism and more conflict.
In 500 pages of tightly woven text, in which Rogan wears his scholarship lightly, he paints both the big picture and fine detail for us to see the Arabs as they should be seen. Not in the “Arabist” model of a homogeneous people united by a common religion, language and culture but as distinct people with clear historical identities, ethnicities, political ideologies and aspirations for the states to which they now belong. Importantly, it also shows how Arab division and miscalculation have played their part in the ill-fated history of the region. Events do not happen to them— they are active players in the outcomes.
One significant omission is the lack of in-depth treatment of the rise of the young Turks movement and the revolution of 1908. The resulting change to Ottoman rule and the middle east finding itself on the wrong side of the first world war had consequences for the Arab world that cannot be underestimated. Also, although it will appeal to a broader audience thanks to its more traditional focus on events, ideology and politics, this is at the cost of political economy. While we can follow the trail of significant political events and turning points in Arab history, the economic and technological developments in the region rarely come into focus. To understand the contemporary Arab world’s relationship with modernity, one needs to be able to grasp the peculiar challenges that late industrialisation have posed. Urbanisation, education and mass media are the drivers of discontent in the Arab world today, and it would be helpful to see to what extent agrarian and feudal communities were transformed into today’s Arab street.
In the pages of Prospect (May 2007), Edward Luttwak argued for the irrelevance of the middle east. His provocative view is, of course, not widely shared, but his proposal that the peoples of the region be finally “allowed to have their own history” is sound. But to allow this, we will have to understand our own role in their history rather better. If there is a recent work that can illuminate who modern Arabs are, and how they are grappling with their relationship to us as much as we are to them, then this is it. It will be the standard reference work for at least a decade.
The Arabs: A History By Eugene Rogan (Allen Lane, £25)
There are many myths about the middle east. And one that remains surprisingly popular in this country is that Britain still has significant influence there—a view often reinforced by Arab sentimentalisation of British power. For those still wedded to this view, Eugene Rogan’s The Arabs: A History will provide pause for thought. It sets the scene for understanding the contemporary middle east through a beautifully crafted tour d’histoire spanning five centuries. It marks the beginning of the modern age for Arabs as the point when the Ottomans conquered the Mamluk Empire in 1517. This watershed event began the first foreign rule of Arabs since the rise of Islam in the early 7th century. The Arab response to conquest was pragmatic. It focused not on their subjugation under foreign rule specifically, but on the administrative levers of Ottoman power such as levels of taxation and questions of law and order. Shared religion, and a view of Islamic universalism, most likely played into this.
Rogan’s reader is taken through the conquests and re-conquests of the major centres of Arab civilisation, culminating in two centuries of Ottoman rule from the Balkans around the Mediterranean across North Africa and extending to the Arabian peninsula. The first major reversal of Ottoman power comes about with Russian support for Balkan nationalists and the European powers moving to dismember the empire after its defeat. Both Britain and France do well out of the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Britain claims Cyprus so France is offered Tunisia to retain the balance of power. Yet the balance is not preserved as Britain finds itself occupying Egypt not from choice but necessity in the face of an uprising, thus precipitating the European powers’ “scramble for Africa.”
As we move from the age of empire into the 20th century, Rogan concentrates both on events and the voices of players on the ground who lend authenticity to the account: the 18th-century barber in Damascus, who meticulously records all going-ons around him, the early 19th-century Egyptian reformist cleric who sails for France to educate himself on Europe, or later the mixed heritage Lebanese interpreter who accompanies Yasser Arafat to his historic UN speech in 1978. The stories they bear witness to are at the same time unremarkable for the period covered yet unusual for the weaving of different narratives into a unified landscape.
Rogan warns his reader that he inevitably concentrates more on some countries than others—the contemporary Arab world comprises 21 states—but in so doing, is meticulously fair in privileging the centres of power according to their importance to events which shaped the region. Egypt, Syria and the Levant—the cradle of Arab civilisation—are thoroughly explored. The demise of Ottoman rule in north Africa and its giving way to European imperialism takes us into the 20th century. It also shows up the myth created by pan-Arabism that the Arabs are a single homogeneous people—the Egyptians did not consider themselves Arab until well into Nasser’s pan-Arabism of the 1950s, reserving that title for the people of the Hijaz or Arabian peninsula, or Bedouins.
It is the early 20th century where the roots of the turmoil prevailing in the Arab world today is seen most vividly. While the Soviet Union and the US are the more malign influences of the recent past, it is Britain and France (the mandate powers) who come out worst. The end of the first world war sees Woodrow Wilson’s strong support for self-determination, holding out the possibility of independence, which is denied or forestalled by western powers time and again. The legacy of the 1917 Balfour declaration’s impossible promise to create a Jewish homeland, while retaining the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” is with us nearly 100 years later. France’s handling of the Algerian war of independence and both powers’ roles in the postwar struggles for self-determination in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt make it inevitable for anti-westernism to take hold. Nasser’s pan-Arabism seems to be the natural response in a quest for homegrown political identity but ultimately gives way to authoritarianism and more conflict.
In 500 pages of tightly woven text, in which Rogan wears his scholarship lightly, he paints both the big picture and fine detail for us to see the Arabs as they should be seen. Not in the “Arabist” model of a homogeneous people united by a common religion, language and culture but as distinct people with clear historical identities, ethnicities, political ideologies and aspirations for the states to which they now belong. Importantly, it also shows how Arab division and miscalculation have played their part in the ill-fated history of the region. Events do not happen to them— they are active players in the outcomes.
One significant omission is the lack of in-depth treatment of the rise of the young Turks movement and the revolution of 1908. The resulting change to Ottoman rule and the middle east finding itself on the wrong side of the first world war had consequences for the Arab world that cannot be underestimated. Also, although it will appeal to a broader audience thanks to its more traditional focus on events, ideology and politics, this is at the cost of political economy. While we can follow the trail of significant political events and turning points in Arab history, the economic and technological developments in the region rarely come into focus. To understand the contemporary Arab world’s relationship with modernity, one needs to be able to grasp the peculiar challenges that late industrialisation have posed. Urbanisation, education and mass media are the drivers of discontent in the Arab world today, and it would be helpful to see to what extent agrarian and feudal communities were transformed into today’s Arab street.
In the pages of Prospect (May 2007), Edward Luttwak argued for the irrelevance of the middle east. His provocative view is, of course, not widely shared, but his proposal that the peoples of the region be finally “allowed to have their own history” is sound. But to allow this, we will have to understand our own role in their history rather better. If there is a recent work that can illuminate who modern Arabs are, and how they are grappling with their relationship to us as much as we are to them, then this is it. It will be the standard reference work for at least a decade.
