HIST-266 History of the Modern Middle East

Credits 3 / 3 Contact Hours
Pre-requisite: Placement into College Level Reading, completion of ELAP-120 with a 2.0 or higher, or successful completion of ACRD-090, ACRD-091 or ACRD-092.
This class is an introduction to the social, economic, and political history of the Middle East and North Africa from the late Ottoman Empire to the present. This class examines the impact of imperialism, World War I, nationalism, authoritarianism, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in the late 19th and 20th centuries in light of the problems of global modernity, as well as the more recent phenomena of Islamic fundamentalism and the “Arab Spring” uprisings.

Course Outcomes
1. Assess attempts at defensive developmentalism- modernization as a reaction to European imperialism-in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire 2. Evaluate the role of imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries throughout the Middle East, including the concept of sectarianism 3. Evaluate changes taking place in the daily lives of both elite and common people of the Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including intellectual and religious movements 4. Compare the failed constitutionalist movements of Persia and the Ottoman Empire 5. Evaluate the three methods by which states were established in the Middle East in the early 20th century-by decree, by revolution, and by conquest 6. Explain how nationalism was invented and spread in Syria, Turkey, Persia, Iraq, and Egypt 7. Evaluate the causes of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from the late 19th century to the present 8. Explain why authoritarianism became the dominant model of governance in the Middle East 9. Evaluate the ways in which oil has affected the Middle East 10. Evaluate the goals/interests of the United States, the dominant global power since the end of the Cold War, in the Middle East 11. Evaluate nativist and rights-based movements in the post-colonial Middle East 12. Contextualize the “Arab Spring.” 13. Contextualize Salafist takfiri jihadist organizations, particularly al Qaeda and ISIS/ISIL/Daesh 14. Analyze primary source documents on all eras of the history of the Middle East.