Scholarship on the Modern Middle East tends to be bounded by political divisions, on both temporal and spatial ends. Few studies bridge multiple regimes (Ottoman to Mandate to Independence), and few include multiple polities (Iraq and Egypt, or even Palestine and Transjordan). The Yishuv (Jewish settlement in Palestine) is even more seldom integrated into Middle Eastern History. Schayegh argues that one of the lacunae caused by this nationalist focus, and select periodization is a full understanding of the role of cities, and how they shaped and were shaped by the entry of the Middle East into the modern world. In this work, the term Middle East mainly refers to Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria), while modernity denotes a Eurocentric world economy, urbanization and increasingly powerful states.
This ambitious book seeks to tie the modernization of Bilad al-Sham to global trends, combining transnational history, notions of territoriality, and the oft-used term transpatialization to draw disparate threads together. Transpatialization, a “heuristic umbrella,” describes the increasing speed of transformation, due to the mutual interactions of “cities, regions, states and global circuits” (2), which characterizes the modern world. Schayegh states he chose this rather difficult term because other options limited the scope of analyses too narrowly. For example, “transnational” concentrates on either nations or flows between them, usually at a fairly fixed moment in time. Instead, this book follows trends and connections across time, space, and also scales of history, from the micro to the global. The focus, or “pivot,” of the story is Bilad al-Sham, from the Ottoman through the independence eras. Using an impressive array of primary sources, as well as select oral histories, Schayegh constructs a wide-ranging economic, cultural, and urban history of the region.
The book is organized chronologically into five chapters, which share the same structure. First, the “prelude”, a more or less illustrative anecdote, followed by historical context, then the “the story to come” or an overview of the chapter's argument, and finally what is meant to be the meat of the chapter. However, the argument has a fairly strong degree of overlap with the historical context and vice versa, which makes it difficult to see the utility in separating the two. In addition, the argument sections of chapters three, four, and five are further subdivided into sections on administration, culture, and the economy, “through the lens of cities and the region” (139).
Chapter One asserts that the first stage of transpatialization occurred during the late Ottoman period, from approximately the 1830s through World War I. Schayegh explores the expansion of the Ottoman state, as well as local trends and imbrications in the world economy, particularly their effects on cities. This chapter argues that in the late nineteenth century, Bilad al-Sham's cities, mainly Beirut, leveraged their changing placement on the Ottoman, shāmī, and world stages. These cities became more connected to one another, and also part of an increasingly integrated area, a “multi-city patchwork region” focused on Beirut (329). The second chapter moves to World War I, arguing that this period accelerated the processes of transpatialization which had occurred during the late Ottoman era. During wartime the Ottoman state became more powerful and involved in Bilad al-Sham as a unit. Although Damascus gained in importance while Beirut's role faltered, both cities continued to be important to the region.
The third chapter, “Ottoman Twilight: 1918-1929,” argues that the end of the Ottoman Empire marked a new stage of transpatialization for Bilad al-Sham. This stage was particularly transitional, a complex mix of late Ottoman and proto nation-state forces and agents. For example, cities and their hinterlands could be separated by new national borders, or “transnationalized” as Schayegh puts it. Yet, their cross-regional connections persisted, albeit now shaped by the Mandate governments.
The fourth chapter moves into the 1930s, when national ties, as well as new economic and infrastructural configurations, weakened Bilad al-Sham's coherence as a unit. Schayegh argues that this decade did not mark a new era of transpatialization but rather an intensification of previous trends, such as the reconfiguration of cities’ role within national as well as regional and global boundaries. The final content-based chapter, “Empire Redux,” examines the effects of World War II on the region. Increased British control, or the “peak (British imperial) state territorialization” (275), forged a new area, changing certain cities’ economic fortunes, while subsuming Bilad al-Sham as a unit into a broader, British-dominated Middle East. Moreover, the increasing nationalism and independence of Bilad al-Sham's polities pushed qawmī (pan-Arab) affiliations, particularly with Egypt and to a lesser extent Iraq, over and above the regional connections to Bilad al-Sham. The rather thin postscript takes the story of Bilad al-Sham to the present day. In so doing it offers few specific insights about Bilad al-Sham but includes such platitudes as “cities have continued to matter after independence” (317).
The broader trends this book describes are fairly intuitive, for example, that budding nation states became more powerful over time, and that cities remained relevant. On the other hand, the book works hard to trace how these shifts happened. For example, in describing the lessening importance of Bilad al-Sham as a territorial, economic, cultural, and political unit, Schayegh notes that during World War II, Vichy rule led Britain to embargo Syria and Lebanon. In 1941, Britain (with help from the United States) also created the Middle East Supply Center, which brought together areas of the Middle East and North Africa into one “economic-administrative area of production, exchange, and consumption” (273). These factors undermined Bilad al-Sham's coherence as an economic unit.
Schayegh advances an ambitious and fascinating project: integrating analyses of the region as a whole, across regimes, and historiographically attenuated borders. However, his approach unfortunately tends to obscure his empirical findings, such as the Yishuv's competition and cooperation with Beirut. Further, the overarching argument, as well as the structure, tend to downplay key contributions in favor of sweeping pronouncements. This book is at its best with details, particularly the economic links between Mandates, and continuities with the Ottoman era. It is recommended for scholars interested in new approaches to transnational histories, particularly the “nationalist” assumptions of these approaches. It would also be well suited to advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in transnational history, as well as courses on the late Ottoman and interwar Middle East period.
