Making the Modern Middle East

(Same as 81B. 181B is 5 units; 81B is 3 units.) This course aims to introduce students to major themes in the modern history of the region linking the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. No prerequisites or prior knowledge of the Middle East is required. We will begin with the Eurasian context that produced the Safavid and Ottoman empires and quickly move to the rapid transformations of the nineteenth century and imperial dissolution of the early twentieth. Twentieth-century themes will include mass migrations and colonial occupation; nationalism, mass politics and revolution; socialist and Islamist movements; and the growing role of American policy in the region. The course will conclude with a close examination of the profound transformations of the past decade, from the multiform uprisings of the 2010s to the equally multiform attempts to repress them.