Session 1 Wednesday - September 07, 2011 Topic: Part I What Went Wrong?

Part One:
Part One of the course examines alternative approaches to explaining the kinds of modern state that emerged in the Middle East and the ways its forms of power and authority were shaped; the birth of "economic development" as a way of describing the function and measuring the success of the state, and the changing metrics of this success; and rival explanations for the failures of the region's contemporary political and economic development. We consider in detail the case of Egypt, and ask which, if any, of these approaches offers the most useful understanding of the country's twentieth-century political history and of the revolution of 2011.

Required Reading:
Bernard Lewis, "What Went Wrong?" Atlantic Monthly, January 2002, 43-45 (click on link below) Thomas Friedman, "One Country, Two Worlds," New York Times, January 28, 2000 (click on link below) Joel Beinin, Egypt's Workers Rise Up, The Nation, March 7-14, 2011.

Files: Friedman, "One Country, Two Worlds" Lewis, "What Went Wong?" Session 2 Monday - September 12, 2011 Topic: The Idea of 'Development' Required Reading:
United Nations Development Program, Arab Human Development Report, 2002, "Overview: A Future for All," pp. 1-13. (NOTE: The 2002 Report is NOT the one featured on this page, but can be accessed as a .pdf via the link on the left, here: direct link to .pdf). Wolfgang Sachs, "Development: The Rise and Decline of an Ideal," Wuppertal Paper no. 108 (23pp) (click on link below) Larry Lohmann, "Activism, Expertise, Commons," Development Dialogue, 47, pp. 149-181 (click on link below). Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts, chapter 1, "Can the Mosquito Speak?" pp. 19-53. EBOOKS link.

Files: Larry Lohmann, "Activism, Expertise, Commons." Wolfgang Sachs, "Development: The Rise and Decline of an Ideal." Session 3 Wednesday - September 14, 2011 Topic:

Land, Labor, and Debt Required Reading:

Khaled Fahmy, "The Era of Muhammad `Ali Pasha, 1805-1848," Cambridge History of Egypt, vol 2, pp. 139-179. (The link takes you to an electronic copy of the text. Print copies are available on reserve, and for purchase at Book Culture.) F. Robert Hunter, "Egypt under the Successors of Muhammad `Ali," Cambridge History of Egypt, vol 2, pp. 180-197 (link above). Donald Malcolm Reid, "The `Urabi Revolution and the British Conquest, 1879-1882," Cambridge History of Egypt, vol 2, pp. 217-238 (link above) Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital, chapters 1 and 3 (abridged) (links below).

Notes on terminology:
You will come across terminology in the articles on 19th-century Egypt that may be unfamiliar to those of you who have not studied Arab history. A few of these terms are explained below. Consult a reliable reference source, such as Britannica Online for fuller explanations of these and other terms. Mamluks: The ruling households in Egypt prior to the establishment of the Muhammad Ali dynasty in the 19th century. Cairo was a province of the Ottoman Empire, whose capital was in Istanbul in modern-day Turkey, but Mamluk houses held local power over the revenues and government of Cairo and the Nile valley. The Porte: The Sublime Porte, or high gate, the term for the seat of government in Istanbul, used as a way of referring to the Ottoman authorities, similar to the way terms like "the Kremlin" or "Downing Street" are used. It actually referred to the gateway to the precinct where the main offices of the Ottoman state were housed. The Sa'id: Upper Egypt, the term for the Nile Valley south of Cairo. If it is confusing to think of south as upwards, remember that the Nile, unlike any other major world river, flows downhill from south to north. This places the north below the south. Modern maps comventionally reverse the order and place north above south. Distinguish this term from the name Sa'id Pasha (spelled and pronounced differently in Arabic, but appearing the same in English, due to a shortage of letters in the English alphabet), the ruler of Egypt from 1854 to 1863. Ulama: men of learning--lawyers, judges, teachers, scholars; an important political class in Cairo and the provinces. Ashraf: Notables--heads of the most prominent Arab households in Cairo and other cities. Fallahin: farmers, peasants; sometimes used as a general term for the rural population.

Files: de Soto Chapter 1 (abridged) de Soto chapter 3 (abridged)

Session 4 Monday - September 19, 2011 Topic: Colonising Egypt Required Readings:
M.W. Daly, "The British Occupation, 1882-1922," Cambridge History of Egypt, vol 2, pp. 239-251. Joel Beinin, "Egypt: Society and Economy, 1923-1952," Cambridge History of Egypt, pp. 309-333 (link above). Mitchell, Rule of Experts, chapter 3, "The Character of Calculability," pp. 80-123. Print copies of the readings are also available, on reserve.

Session 5 Wednesday - September 21, 2011 Topic: Military Society Required Reading:
Anouar Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society. The Army Regime, the Left, and Social Change Under Nasser, Preface, pp. vii-xl (click on link below) Alain Roussillon, "Republican Egypt Interpreted: Revolution and Beyond," Cambridge History of Egypt, pp. 334-393. Mitchell, Rule of Experts, chapters 4 and 5, pp. 123-178 Print copies of the books are available on reserve.

Files: Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society Session 6 Monday - September 26, 2011 Topic: Control Reform Required Readings:
Mitchell, Rule of Experts, chapters 7 and 9, pp. 209-243 and 272-303. Issandr El Amrani, "Controlled Reform in Egypt: Neither Reformist nor Controlled," Middle East Report, December 15, 2005. Joel Beinin, The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra." Middle East Report Online, September 29, 2007. Hossam al-Hamalay, "Dismissed Ghazl Shebeen Workers Launch Hunger Strike. Arabawy, September 1, 2009. Baheyya, "Who Should Rule Egypt?" baheyya.blogspot.com, August 15, 2009.

Session 7 Wednesday - September 28, 2011 Topic: Revolution 2011 Required readings:
To be annoucned

Session 8 Monday - October 03, 2011 Topic: Part II Sleepwalking to Extinction (Paper due) Required Readings:
George Monbiot, Sleepwalking to Extinction. Myles Allen et al, The Exit Strategy, Nature REPORTS: Climate Change, 30 April 2009. Leo Hickman, Journal editor resigns over 'flawed' paper co-authored by climate sceptic, The Guardian, 2 September 201. (Monbiot's "Sleepwalking" piece was written in 2003, before the publication of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change, which contained more serious warnings about the approach of catastrophic climate change. In 2009, the U.N. Environmental Program published a report on the findings of climate change research since the 2007 IPCC Report. This shows that "the pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering predictions" of the 2007 report. See the summary here, and the full report here).

Assignments Due:
Paper due at start of class.

Session 9 Wednesday - October 05, 2011 Topic: Carbon Democracy Required Readings:
Michael T. Klare, The New Geogrpahy of Conflict, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 3 (2001), pp. 49-61. Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy, Economy and Society, 38, no 3, 2009.

Session 10 Monday - October 10, 2011 Topic: Iran: Making of an Oil State

Required Reading:
Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, Introduction and chapters 1-3, pp. 1-96 Copies of the book are available on reserve at Butler Library and Lehman Library, or for purchase at Book Culture (112th St)

Session 11 Wednesday - October 12, 2011 Topic: The Struggle Over Oil Reading:
Abrahamian, Modern Iran, chapters 4 and 5, pp. 97-154

Lecture slides:
Timeline US arms transfers Iran arms imports

Session 12 Monday - October 17, 2011 Topic: The Islamic Republic Required reading and viewing:
Abrahamian, History of Modern Iran, chap 6, 155-195. Crimson Gold [Talaye sorkh], directed by Jafar Panahi (2003). On reserve at Butler Media Center (Room 208B, Butler Library). The film runs 95 min, and is in Persian with English subtitles. It is on the two week hold shelf at the Media Center, and you view it at the Center. Please watch it before Wednesday's class.

Session 13 Wednesday - October 19, 2011 Topic: Future Measures Required Readings:
Readings to be announced

Session 14

Monday - October 24, 2011 Topic: Midterm exam Required reading:

No readings

Session 15 Wednesday - October 26, 2011 Topic: Part III Modern Iraq Required Reading:
Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, Introduction and chap 1 & 2. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Bathists, and Free Officers, Book One, Part One: chapters 1-4 pp. 5-50. Available on reserve at Butler, or online here.

Session 16 Monday - October 31, 2011 Topic: Social Movements and Classes Required readings:
Tripp, History of Iraq, chapters 3 & 4 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, chapter 17, pp. 465-482

Session 17 Wednesday - November 02, 2011 Topic: Iraq Before Saddam Required Readings:
Tripp, History of Iraq, chapter 5, pp.143-185. Batatu, The Old Social Classes, chapters 44-47, pp. 866-925. National Security Council, U.S. Objectives 1952

Session 18 Wednesday - November 09, 2011 Topic: Saddam's Iraq

Required Readings:
Tripp, History of Iraq, Chapter 6, pp. 186-276. Douglas Little, Mission Impossible (if short of time, concentrate on discussion of US subversion in Iraq).

Session 19 Monday - November 14, 2011 Topic: The Iraq Wars Required Reading:
Tripp, History of Iraq, Chapter 7 and conclusion, pp. 277-322

Session 20 Wednesday - November 16, 2011 Topic: Democracy Debates Required Readings:
Quil Lawrence, "A Precarious Peace in Northern Iraq," Middle East Report Online, October 1, 2009. Timothy Williams and Sa'ad Izzi, "Iraq Passes Crucial Election Law", New York Times, November 9, 2009.

Session 21 Monday - November 21, 2011 Topic: Part IV Palestine/Israel (Paper due) Required Reading:
Charles Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents, 7th edition (Oct 2009), Prologue and chapter 1, pp. 1-52. NOTE: In the assignments from Smith, the historical documents at the end of each chapter, such as the readings from Theodore Herzl and other documents at the end of chapter 1, are an important part of the assigned readings. [The Smith text, which we will be reading in its entirety over the next three weeks, is available for purchase at Book Culture. Butler Library is only showing the 4th edition of 2001 on reserve. For those using earlier editions of the book, where the chapters may be numbered differently, the assignment for this class corresponds to the material covering the period up to 1914. The historical coverage of the chapters assigned for each lecture will be shown, so that you can find the corresponding chapters in other editions.]

Session 22

Wednesday - November 23, 2011 Topic: Zionism and the Land Question Required reading:
Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, chaps 2 & 3 (read both the text and the documents). (Covers period 1914-1939)

Session 23 Monday - November 28, 2011 Topic: Partition Required Reading:

Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, chaps 4 & 5 (read both the text and the documents). (Covers period 1939-1957/)

Session 24 Wednesday - November 30, 2011 Topic: The Arab-Israeli Conflict Required Reading:
Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, chapters 6 & 7, text and documents. (covers period 1957-77)

Session 25 Monday - December 05, 2011 Topic: Peace Processes Required Reading:
Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, chapters 8 & 9, text and documents. (Covers period 1977-1993)

Session 26 Wednesday - December 07, 2011 Topic: Post-Oslo Politics Required Reading:

Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, chapters 10 & 11, text and documents. (Covers period 1993-2009; if using an earlier edition, note that the current edition devotes 6 pp to the period 2001-2005, 5 pp. to 2005-06; and 4 pp to 2007-April 09, and also has additional maps and documents.)

Session 27 Monday - December 12, 2011 Topic: Conclusions Required Readings:

Readings to be announced

Assignments Due:
Paper due 3 days after final class.