Charles Issawi - Böcker

This is the first systematic economic history of the Fertile Crescent throughout the nineteenth century, a region encompassing what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and a small part of Turkey. Charles Issawi, an authority on the Middle East, has compiled and edited a comprehensive selection of documents from sources in English and seven other languages (all translated), the majority published here for the first time. His own substantive chapter introductions and the 154 selections cover all aspects of nineteenth century economic life in the region: social life and organization, trade, transport, and public and private finance.

Among the forces shaping today's international landscape, those of cultural differences and conflicts are perhaps the most prominent. Charles Issawi's latest collection of essays has been written in the belief that a study of the past encounters and conflicts between the world's major cultures can shed light on their nature and importance. Ranging in scope from the great ancient civilizations to Shelley's passion for the Middle East, from the economics of the Ottoman empire to the pre-eminence of English as an international language, this wonderful collection reflects the many interests of its author, though its main emphasis is on the Middle East, whose cultural conflict with the West cannot fail to be of special concern to us today.

The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary. This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years. In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.

The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary. This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years. In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.