The Arab countries under Ottoman rule

In this authentic work, Jean Hathaway offers a broad reevaluation of the effects of Ottoman rule in the Arab countries: Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and it is the first work of its kind in forty years [before the publication of the book in 2008]. She challenges the old concepts about this period, which depict it as a corrupt phase that paved the way for the rise of Arab nationalism and Arab nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author presents a period of massive social, cultural, economic, and political changes that helped establish the foundations of the modern Levant today. She deeply benefited from a wide range of primary Arab and Ottoman sources and examined the changing conditions of the political elite and a broader spectrum of the population, including traders, shop owners, farmers, Bedouins, religious scholars, women, and religious and national minorities living in this diverse and volatile region. In short and clearly deserving of a creative professor, the author guides the reader through all the main current approaches and discussions surrounding Arab society during this period. This book is much more than just a regular political history; it is a comprehensive study offering a completely new perspective on the period and the region in general.