AFTER THE WAR OCCUPATION, MANDATES, AND THE MIDDLE EAST (1918 -1939)

Course Objectives:

This course aims to introduce students to the end of the Ottoman Empire, First World War, and the making of the modern Middle East. The main questions asked in this class are: What is the impact of the war and occupation on the peoples of the Middle East, especially in the Ottoman-Arab lands? What is the impact of the war and occupation on the creation of the new states? What is the new international system of Mandates? The course will introduce students to the history of the Middle East beyond the one single national state and introduce concepts of nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism. It will introduce prominent issues (like the creation of the Mandate system) and historical debates (like the origins of the Arab Revolt) about this period and examine the legacies of the war.

Course Content:

This course will cover the First World War and the immediate aftermath of it in the Middle East. The goal is to understand the impact of the war in the Ottoman Empire but also in the larger Middle East with a special emphasis on the ex-Ottoman Arab provinces. The course will open with the last years of the Ottoman Empire, explore the experiences of the war on the Ottoman citizens, especially those in the Arab lands. The course will also use the Allied occupation of Istanbul as a case study to emphasize different plans on the Middle East. Afterwards, it will focus on the French and British mandates in the Levant, and Egypt to explore political, social, and cultural movements due to the impact of the war and the Mandate system.