Colonialism and Nation-Building in the Arab World
Spring 2013
Debate on the effects of European colonial rule has been revived in the decade since the United States occupied Iraq. We engage the debate by studying the effect of foreign rule on one region, the Arab world: French and British colonization of Algeria and Egypt in the long 19th-century; the League of Nations' mandates in Syria and Iraq after World War I; and finally Americans' effort to rebuild the Iraqi state since 2003. Students will write a set of response papers or a midterm paper, and then write a final paper that intervenes in the debate by placing the intervention in Iraq into historical perspective. Readings include Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and Lessons for Global Power;Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria; Makdisi and Silverstein, Memory and Violence in the Middle East; Martin, Empires of Intelligence; Herring and Rangwala, Iraq in Fragments.
