This compelling analysis of the modern Middle East - based on research in 19 archives and numerous languages - shows the transition from an internal history characterised by local realities that were plural and multidimensional, and where identities were flexible and hybrid, to a simplified history largely imagined and imposed by external actors. The author demonstrates how the once-heterogeneous identities of Middle Eastern peoples were sealed into a standardised and uniform version that persists to this day. He also sheds light on the efforts that peoples in the region - in the context of a new process of homogenisation of diversities - are exerting in order to get back into history, regaining possession of their multifaceted pasts.
- ISBN13 9781474448956
- Publish Date 31 May 2020 (first published 31 March 2019)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Edinburgh University Press
- Format Paperback
- Pages 280
- Language English