Anderson on A History of the Modern Middle East
Betty Anderson, Director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, discussed her book A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels, and Rogues, as part of the 2016-2017 Faculty Book Talk Series on January 23, 2017.
The event was attended by Pardee School students and faculty and included a talk by Anderson on the history of the Middle East stretching from the fourteenth century and the founding of the Ottoman and Safavid empires through present-day protests and upheavals. Anderson’s talk was followed by a question and answer session with students and faculty.
In A History of the Modern Middle East, Anderson focuses on Turkey, Iran, and the Arab countries of the Middle East, as well as areas often left out of Middle East history—such as the Balkans and the changing roles that Western forces have played in the region for centuries—to discuss the larger contexts and influences on the region’s cultural and political development.
Anderson said her goal in writing the book was to find a common thread throughout the history of the region between different rulers in both the way they gained power and the way they governed their populations.
“In different chapters and in different era of Middle East history, I was able to bring together information from both the dominant political narrative that we usually see in textbooks, and the monographs that I and my colleagues have been writing. That was really my goal in writing this book,” Anderson said. “From the rise of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires, which is more or less where I start, up to the Arab Spring I tried to find the connections between the rulers and the different ways rulers gained authority and had legitimacy as well as how they interacted with their particular populations and subjects — which is where I got the rebels and rogues.”
Anderson said one of the most interesting periods in the history of the modern Middle East is the interwar period, ranging from 1919 to the outset of World War II, due to the way relations between rulers and their populations changed — especially with respect to the demographics of political protests.
“Another one of my favorite times in history is the interwar period in the Middle East — a time when we first come out of World War I and there are protests across the Middle East. Whether it’s Turkey, Iran, Syria or Egypt there are protests in different ways. I looked at that transition from 1919 through 1921 when tribal leaders, local village leaders and religious leaders were largely the leaders of these protests,” Anderson said. “By the 1930s they’ve been supplanted by students, workers and new urban migrants who are organizing political parties, writing more newspapers, having political salons and waging worker strikes. The interwar period really created new relationships between the rulers, the rebels and the rogues.”
Dr. Anderson has received Fulbright and American Center for Oriental Research (ACOR) grants to conduct research in Jordan and Lebanon. At Boston University, she is Director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations, as well as the Institute’s advisor to the two Muslim Studies Minors. You can read more about her here.