Viewed in the UK as dangerously retardataire, survey courses remain mainstays of history teaching at American universities. The textbooks that serve this market, such as the late William L. Cleveland’s A History of the Modern Middle East (1994) represent the capstone of distinguished scholarly careers, and have passed through multiple editions. For Kent Schull these tomes perform a useful service, but fail to acknowledge how forced migrations and the “unmixing of populations” form a counterpoint to the themes of “transformation” and nation-building which structure their metanarratives of Middle East history. Redressing this affords a way of recovering histories of Kurds, Yazidis and the many other communities invisible to Area Studies, owing to their lack of a nation-state. It is not just a question of doing history better, but of equipping ourselves to move beyond “crisis management” in the region, to resolve conflicts rather than simply explaining them, in a way which recognizes analogies between Middle Eastern history and that of the rest of the world, and hence avoids essentializing the region as destined to lurch from crisis to crisis.

Episode 42 – A Textbook Case

Podcasts are published by TLP for the purpose of encouraging informed debate on the legacies of the events surrounding the Lausanne Conference. The views expressed by participants do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of TLP, its partners, convenors or members.

MAIN IMAGE: AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN READING ROOM (AREA STUDIES), LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, THOMAS JEFFERSON BUILDING, WASHINGTON D.C.