HIST 3560 - History of the Modern Middle East

5 credit hours
This course investigates how the transitions between the Ottoman Empire, British and French colonization, and national independence have shaped the modern Middle East (1798-present). The course uses the cultural outputs-songs, movies, books-of the region’s artists, writers, and politicians to help us understand how the people of the Middle East experienced the region’s political transitions. European and American actions in the region have contributed to and impeded the social, political, and economic development of the Middle East. Sources from American history will help us grasp why many people in the United States have come to see the Middle East as a place fraught with conflict. The region is not isolated from the world around it : just as the Middle East has contributed to the world that encircles it, global political and social forces have shaped its development over the last two centuries.