In this seminal study, Jane Hathaway presents a wide-ranging reassessment of the effects of Ottoman rule on the Arab Lands of Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and Yemen - the first of its kind in over forty years.

Challenging outmoded perceptions of this period as a demoralizing prelude to the rise of Arab nationalism and Arab nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hathaway depicts an era of immense social, cultural, economic and political change which helped to shape the foundations of today's modern Middle and Near East. Taking full advantage of a wide range of Arabic...