Book Launch: The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East

26 April 2018, 6 p.m.

Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin

The modern Middle East emerged out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when Britain and France partitioned the Ottoman Arab lands into several new colonial states.The following period was a charged and transformative time of unrest. Insurgent leaders, trained in Ottoman military tactics and with everything to lose from the fall of the Empire, challenged the mandatory powers in a number of armed revolts. This is a study of this crucial period in Middle Eastern history, tracing the period through popular political movements and the experience of colonial rule. In doing so, Provence emphasises the continuity between the late Ottoman and Colonial era, explaining how national identities emerged, and how the seeds were sown for many of the confl icts which have defi ned the Middle East in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Prof. Dr. Michael Provence teaches modern Middle East history at the University of California, San Diego. In 2010-11 and 2014 Provence was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient. He is also the author of The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism (2005) also published in Arabic in 2012. His research focuses on the Ottoman, colonial, and post-colonial Arab world.