Modernity and Culture from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 1890-1920

Description

Between the 1890s and 1920s, cities in the vast region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean were experiencing political, social, economic, and cultural changes that had been set in motion at least since the early nineteenth century. As the age of pre-colonial empires gave way to colonial and national states, there was a sense that a particular liberalism of culture and economy had been irretrievably lost to a more intolerant age. Avoiding such dichotomies as East/West and modernity/tradition, this book provides a comparative analysis of contested versions of the concept of modernity. The book examines not only the "high" culture of scholars and the literati, but also popular music, the visual arts, and journalism. The contributors incorporate discussion of the way in which the business in both commodities and ideas was conducted in the increasingly cosmopolitan cities of the time. Contents Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction: The Connected World of Empires 1. Trade and Port Cities in the Red Sea-Gulf of Aden Region in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century 2. A Divided Sea: The Cairo Coffee Trade in the Red Sea Area during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 3. The Red Sea Ports During the Revolution in Transportation, 1800-1914 4. Port Cities as Nodal Points of Change: The Indian Ocean, 1890s-1920s 5. Haifa at the Crossroads: An Outpost of the New World Order 6. Islamic Universalism and the Construction of Regional Identity in Turn-of-the-Century Basra: Sheikh Ibrahim al-Haidari's Book Revisited 7. Damascus and the Pilgrim Caravan 8. Aspects of Economy and Society in the Syrian Provences: Aleppo in Transition, 1880-1925 9. Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation and Community in Egypt and India, 1880-1914 10. Izmir 1922: A Port City Unravels 11. Negotiating Colonial Modernity and Cultural Difference: Indian Muslim Conceptions of Community and Nation: 1878-1914 12. The Tangled Ends of an Empire and Its Sultan 13. Racial Readings of Empire: Britain, France, and COlonial Modernity in the Mediterranean and Asia 14. Alexandria: A Mediterranean Cosmopolitan Center of Cultural Production 15. Between Politics and Literature: Journals in Alexandria and Istanbul at the End of the Nineteenth Century 16. Printing and Urban Islam in the Mediterranean World, 1890-1920 17. Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim: Theory and History Index