Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface and Acknowledgements ix
4. Note on Translation and Transliteration xiii
5. Abbreviations and Acronyms xv
6. 1. Introduction: Modernity, Class, and the Architectures of Community 1
7. 2. An Eastern Mediterranean City on the Eve of Revolution 31
8. Section I. Being Modern in a Time of Revolution: The Revolution of 1908 and the Beginnings of Middle-Class Politics (1908–1918)
9. Introduction 55
10. 3. Ottoman Precedents (I): Journalism, Voluntary Association, and the “True Civilization” of the Middle Class 68
11. 4. Ottoman Precedents (II): The Technologies of the Public Sphere and the Multiple Deaths of the Ottoman Citizen 95
12. Section II. Being Modern in a Moment of Anxiety: The Middle Class Makes Sense of A “Postwar” World (1918–1924)—Historicism, Nationalism, and Violence
13. Introduction 121
14. 5. Rescuing the Arab from History: Halab, Orientalist Imaginings, Wilsonianism, and Early Arabism 134
15. 6. The Persistence of Empire at the Moment of Its Collapse: Ottoman-Islamic Identity and “New Men” Rebels 160
16. 7. Remembering the Great War: Allegory, Civil Virtue, and Conservative Reaction 185
17. Section III. Being Modern in an Era of Colonialism: Middle-Class Modernity and the Culture of the French Mandate for Syria (1924–1946)
18. Introduction 211
19. 8. Deferring to the A‘yan: The Middle-Class and the Politics of Notables 222
20. 9. Middle-Class Fascism and the Transformation of Civil Violence: Steel Shirts, White Badges, and the Last Qabaday 255
21. 10. Not Quite Syrians: Aleppo’s Communities of Collaboration 279
22. 11. Coda: The Incomplete Project of Middle-Class Modernity and the Paradox of Metropolitan Desire 299
23. Select Bibliography 309
24. Index 317