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The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria
Benjamin Thomas White
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Description for The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria
Hardback. This book uses a study of Syria under the French mandate to show what historical developments led people to start describing themselves and others as 'minorities'. Num Pages: 256 pages, 2 maps, 2 black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: 1FBS; 3JJG; HBJF1; HBLW; JP. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 234 x 156 x 23. Weight in Grams: 548.
Why, in the years around 1920, did the concept of ‘minority’ suddenly become prominent in public affairs worldwide? Within a decade after World War One, the term became fundamental to public understandings of national and international politics, law, and society: minorities (and majorities too) were taken to be an objective reality, both in the present and the past. This book uses a study of Syria under the French mandate to show what historical developments led people to start describing themselves and others as ‘minorities’. Despite French attempts to create territorial, political, and legal divisions, the mandate period saw the consolidation of the nation-state form in Syria. There was a trend towards a coherent national territory with fixed borders and uniform state authority within them, while the struggle to control the state was played out in the language of nationalism – developments in the post-Ottoman Levant that closely paralleled events in Europe at the same time, following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist empires. Through close attention to what changed in French mandate Syria, and what those changes meant, the book argues for a careful reappraisal of a term too often used as an objective description of reality.
Product Details
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2011
Condition
New
Number of Pages
256
Place of Publication
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780748641871
SKU
V9780748641871
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-50
About Benjamin Thomas White
Benjamin Thomas White is a Senior Lecturer of History at the University of Glasgow. He is author of The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria (Edinburgh University Press). He has published the following chapters: “Animals, people and places in displacement.” in: Adey, P., Bowstead, J., Brickell, K., Desai, V., Dolton, M., Pinkerton, A. and Siddiqi, A. (eds.) The Handbook of Displacement (Palgrave Macmillan) and “Protection or isolation? Humanitarian evacuees in Australian quarantine stations,” in: Scott-Smith, T. and Breeze, M. E. (eds.) Structures of Protection: Rethinking Refugee Shelter (Berghahn Books). He has also been published in the Journal of Global History, Humanity, Fiction and Film for Scholars of France: A Cultural Bulletin, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, British Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and the International Journal of Middle East Studies.
Reviews for The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria
The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East is a fine example of history writing as myth-busting, one that has significance for understanding current events in Syria as well as for the comparative study of the pivotal role of the modern nation-state in shaping national and subnational identities.
Steve Tamari, Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville
Arab Studies Journal
White’s work is a welcome case-study of communal politics in Mandate Syria. Its greatest contribution, however, lies in the author’s ability to weave together layers of local, colonial and international legal discourses, giving voice to a myriad of historical actors. Most importantly, the book links state-building processes to international legal innovations which mandated ‘minority protection’ as a prerequisite for independence and membership in the newly-established League of Nations. Here, the author makes a significant contribution to the often Eurocentric historiography of interwar minority politics and treaties...White has produced a work that is a must-read, not only for scholars of the Middle East, but also for the general public interested in placing contemporary events in general, and regional sectarian politics in particular, into the wider historical context.
Melanie S. Tanielian
English Historical Review
White’s work is a welcome case-study of communal politics in Mandate Syria. Its greatest contribution, however, lies in the author’s ability to weave together layers of local, colonial and international legal discourses, giving voice to a myriad of historical actors. Most importantly, the book links state-building processes to international legal innovations which mandated ‘minority protection’ as a prerequisite for independence and membership in the newly-established League of Nations. Here, the author makes a significant contribution to the often Eurocentric historiography of interwar minority politics and treaties...White has produced a work that is a must-read, not only for scholars of the Middle East, but also for the general public interested in placing contemporary events in general, and regional sectarian politics in particular, into the wider historical context.
Melanie S. Tanielian, University of Michigan
English Historical Review
“…a very valuable addition to the history of the mandate period in Syria… highly relevant for providing a historical background to contemporary debates about states, ‘minorities’ and foreign intervention in Turkey and the Middle East”.
Annika Rabo
Insight Turkey (Vol.16, No.1)
At the present time, when the language of majority-minority is very much at the forefront of political discourse in and about Syria, and when the future contours of the Syrian state are in flux, White’s study helps readers to understand how 'the politics of community' developed in early 20th-century Syria. The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East is an antidote to interpretations of the Syrian present that depend on an uncritically primordialist reading of the country’s past.
James A. Reilly, Professor of Modern Middle East History, University of Toronto
The Syrian Studies Association Newsletter
Enjoyable and insightful… [A] fine work.
Abraham Marcus, Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin We often think that modern nation-states suppress other collective identities identities, but this thought-provoking book turns that assumption on its head, showing how fluid regional and religious identities were constituted as “minorities” through the very process of state-building. Scholars interested in the relationship between collective mobilization and political institutions will want to read this book.
Susan Pedersen, Professor of History, Columbia University
Steve Tamari, Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville
Arab Studies Journal
White’s work is a welcome case-study of communal politics in Mandate Syria. Its greatest contribution, however, lies in the author’s ability to weave together layers of local, colonial and international legal discourses, giving voice to a myriad of historical actors. Most importantly, the book links state-building processes to international legal innovations which mandated ‘minority protection’ as a prerequisite for independence and membership in the newly-established League of Nations. Here, the author makes a significant contribution to the often Eurocentric historiography of interwar minority politics and treaties...White has produced a work that is a must-read, not only for scholars of the Middle East, but also for the general public interested in placing contemporary events in general, and regional sectarian politics in particular, into the wider historical context.
Melanie S. Tanielian
English Historical Review
White’s work is a welcome case-study of communal politics in Mandate Syria. Its greatest contribution, however, lies in the author’s ability to weave together layers of local, colonial and international legal discourses, giving voice to a myriad of historical actors. Most importantly, the book links state-building processes to international legal innovations which mandated ‘minority protection’ as a prerequisite for independence and membership in the newly-established League of Nations. Here, the author makes a significant contribution to the often Eurocentric historiography of interwar minority politics and treaties...White has produced a work that is a must-read, not only for scholars of the Middle East, but also for the general public interested in placing contemporary events in general, and regional sectarian politics in particular, into the wider historical context.
Melanie S. Tanielian, University of Michigan
English Historical Review
“…a very valuable addition to the history of the mandate period in Syria… highly relevant for providing a historical background to contemporary debates about states, ‘minorities’ and foreign intervention in Turkey and the Middle East”.
Annika Rabo
Insight Turkey (Vol.16, No.1)
At the present time, when the language of majority-minority is very much at the forefront of political discourse in and about Syria, and when the future contours of the Syrian state are in flux, White’s study helps readers to understand how 'the politics of community' developed in early 20th-century Syria. The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East is an antidote to interpretations of the Syrian present that depend on an uncritically primordialist reading of the country’s past.
James A. Reilly, Professor of Modern Middle East History, University of Toronto
The Syrian Studies Association Newsletter
Enjoyable and insightful… [A] fine work.
Abraham Marcus, Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin We often think that modern nation-states suppress other collective identities identities, but this thought-provoking book turns that assumption on its head, showing how fluid regional and religious identities were constituted as “minorities” through the very process of state-building. Scholars interested in the relationship between collective mobilization and political institutions will want to read this book.
Susan Pedersen, Professor of History, Columbia University