Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (The Contemporary Middle East, Series Number 2)

The working people, who constitute the majority in any society, can be and deserve to be subjects of history. Joel Beinin's state-of-the-art survey of subaltern history in the Middle East demonstrates lucidly how their lives, experiences, and culture can inform our historical understanding. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the book charts the history of the peasants and the modern working classes across the lands of the Ottoman Empire and its Muslim-majority successor-states. Inspired by the approach of the Indian subaltern Studies school, the book presents a synthetic assessment of the scholarly work on the social history of the region for over thirty years. Students will find it rich in detail, and accessible in presentation. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series-title 4 Tilte 5 Copyright 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Tables 10 Acknowledgments 11 Glossary 13 Acronyms and abbreviations 16 Introduction 21 Workers, peasants, subalterns, classes 23 Where is the Middle East? 25 Orientalism and its critics 26 Political economy 27 What is modernity? 28 When does the modern era in the Middle East begin? 29 Peasants and agrarian production 32 Artisans, guilds, and workers 36 Trajectory of the book 39 1 The world capitalist market, provincial regimes, and local producers, 1750–1839 41 Egypt: the peasants and the pasha 44 Lebanon: peasants and the emergence of communal politics 47 Mount Nablus: peasants and merchants 52 Peasants and state formation in the Ottoman provinces 54 Artisanal production in major cities 55 Nablus: soap making in a regional town 56 Guilds and urban politics 57 Urban social structure and income distribution 58 Towards industrialization? 59 2 Ottoman reform and European imperialism, 1839–1907 64 Sectarian conflict and economic competition in greater Syria 67 Commercial agriculture, large estates, and peasant family farms 69 Late-developing serfdom in Wallachia and Moldavia 70 The 1858 land laws 71 Cotton and the formation of large estates in Egypt and Cukurova 72 Coexistence of peasant family farms and large estates in Anatolia, Rumelia, greater Syria, and Iraq 74 Expanding states and peasant resistance 76 Peasants and French colonialism in North Africa 76 Rural rebellion, religion, and nationalism in the Balkans 77 The Urabi revolt in Egypt 78 Radical peasant movements in greater Syria 79 Craft production, mechanized industry, and the gender division of labor 82 Militant textile journeymen and women’s work in Damascus 83 Silk reeling and working women in Mount Lebanon 84 The uncertain formation of a “modern” working class 85 The Suez Canal: labor relations in a site of “modernity” 85 The Jewish porters' guilds of Salonica 87 Mechanized industry and the industrial working classes 87 3 The rise of mass politics, 1908–1939 91 From rabble to citizens of the nation 93 Urban workers and the 1908 Young Turk Revolution 97 Nationalism and an Egyptian working class 100 World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the end of the Ottoman Empire 101 Socialism and the formation of the Turkish republic 104 Peasant rebellion and labor upsurge in Egypt 106 Peasants, Druze communalism, and Syrian nationalism 110 Shi'a peasant rebellion and the formation of Iraq 112 Islamic revivalism, peasant revolt, and Palestinian nationalism 113 4 Fikri al-Khuli’s journey to al-Mahalla al-Kubra 119 The Misr Spinning and Weaving Company 122 Peasants, workers, Egyptians 123 The prince and the workers 126 Workers and others 127 Labor, capital, and the nationalist movement 127 A simulacrum of modernity? 128 The pedagogy of modernity 130 5 Populist nationalism, state-led development, and authoritarian regimes,1939–1973 134 Depression and world war: the beginnings of state-led industrial development and the growth of urban working classes 135 The peasant question 137 Egypt: landed power and political paralysis 138 Iraq: tribal shaykhs, political elites, and rural poverty 139 Syria: large landlords and peasant politics 140 Algeria: colons and landless peasants 141 Turkey: peasant family farms and rollback of Kemalism 142 Nationalism and urban social radicalism 142 Palestine: Marxism and national conflict 143 Egypt: the rise and limits of working-class radicalism 146 Iraq: communism and the end of the monarchy 148 Armed struggle in Algeria and Yemen 150 Post-colonial, authoritarian-populist regimes 151 Land reform in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Algeria 152 The Kamshish Affair: agrarian reform in a culture of fear 154 The limits of import-substitution industrialization 156 Tunisia: a brief “socialist experiment” 156 Egypt: military defeat and labor resurgence 157 Turkey: radicalization of the labor movement 158 The demise of the left–nationalist/Marxist historical paradigm 159 6 Post-populist reformation of the working class and peasantry 162 The Washington consensus 165 Urbanization and labor migration 168 Women in the wage-labor force 172 Structural adjustment, urban collective action, and state repression 173 Tunisia: a new corporatist bargain 174 Egypt: an inconclusive outcome 176 Turkey: class struggle and bourgeois victory 179 The rollback of agrarian reform 182 Results and prospects 185 Notes 190 INTRODUCTION 190 1 THE WORLD CAPITALIST MARKET, PROVINCIAL REGIMES, AND LOCAL PRODUCERS, 1750–1839 190 2 OTTOMAN REFORM AND EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM, 1839–1907 191 4 FIKRI AL-KHULI’S JOURNEY TO AL-MAHALLA AL-KUBRA 192 5 POPULIST NATIONALISM, STATE-LED DEVELOPMENT, AND AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES, 1939–1973 193 6 POST-POPULIST REFORMATION OF THE WORKING CLASS AND PEASANTRY 193 References 194 Index 219 "Joel Beinin's state-of-the-art survey of subaltern history in the Middle East demonstrates lucidly and compellingly how the lives, experiences and culture of working people can inform our historical understanding. Beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century, the book charts the history of peasants, urban artisans and modern working-classes across the lands of the Ottoman empire and its Muslim-majority successor-states, including the Balkans, Turkey, the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Inspired by the approach of the Indian Subaltern Studies school, the book is the first to offer a synthesized critical assessment of the scholarly work on the social history of this region for the last twenty years. It offers new insights into the political, economic and social life of ordinary men and women and their apprehension of their own experiences. Students will find it rich in narrative detail, and accessible and authoritative in presentation." The large-scale economic and political processes that characterize the period of this chapter are the rise of autonomous provincial regimes, the expansion of agricultural production, and the intensification of links between several parts of the Ottoman Empire and the world capitalist market.