This book examines urbanization in Iran and Egypt related to each nation's unique colonial history based on extraction and production of oil in Iran and cultivation of cotton in Egypt for world markets. Using Tehran and Cairo as the two hyper-urbanized cities, Chaichian documents development of divergent patterns of rural-urban migration, urban hierarchies, and employment structures from the early nineteenth century up to the 1970s when a global economy based on flexible production of consumer goods started to take shape.

Why do empires build walls and fences? Are they for defensive purposes only, to keep the 'barbarians' at the gate; or do they also function as complex offensive military structures to subjugate and control the colonized? Are the colonized subjects also capable of erecting barriers to shield themselves from colonial onslaughts?
In Empires and Walls Mohammad A. Chaichian meticulously examines the rise and fall of the walls that are no longer around; as well as impending fate of 'neo-liberal' barriers that imperial and colonial powers have erected in the new Millennium. Based on four...