Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East by William R. Polk

The book begins with an introductory chapter on theoretical, conceptual, methodological and organizational issues followed by discussions of the evolution of Kurdish 'group identity' (chapter 2), the 'Ottoman Empire and Kurdish tribalism since the sixteenth century' (chapter 3), and Kurdish 'protonationalism' in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (chapter 4). 15), although the two historiographic traditions have developed in different terrains and in oppositional terms. The approach is both 'social and political history' (p.

Chronologically, it focuses on the late Ottoman period, WWI and early Republican years. Its geographical focus is on the Kurds of the Ottoman Empire and those who, after its collapse, were incorporated into the Turkish Republic. 3), a transition from pre- or proto-nationalist group identities into full-fledged nationalism. This work is, in the words of the author, a study of 'the development of Kurdish identity and its culmination to Kurdish nationalism' (p. The book was, therefore, conceived as 'an ambitious attempt to free the study of Kurdish nationalism from its current marginal position and to bring it into mainstream scholarship in Middle Eastern Studies' by examining 'the issue in the context of the Ottoman Empire' (p. Identifying Kurdish nationalism as 'one of the most explosive and critical predicaments in the Middle East,' the author notes that 'the subject regrettably remains poorly studied' (p. Reviewed by Amir Hassanpour (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto)įerment and Fetters in the Study of Kurdish Nationalism Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries.Īlbany: State University of New York Press, 2004.

Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East by William R. Polk