Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean

Download Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477310932
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean by : Odile Moreau

Download or read book Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean written by Odile Moreau and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subaltern studies, the study of non-elite or underrepresented people, have revolutionized the writing of Middle Eastern history. Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean represents the next step in this transformation. The book explores the lives of eleven nonconformists who became agents of political and social change, actively organizing new forms of resistance—against either colonial European regimes or the traditional societies in which they lived—that disrupted the status quo, in some cases, with dramatic results. These case studies highlight cross-border connections in the Mediterranean world, exploring how these channels were navigated. Chapters in the book examine the lives of subversives and mavericks, such as Tawhida ben Shaykh, the first Arab woman to receive a medical degree; Mokhtar al-Ayari, a radical Tunisian labor leader; Nazli Hanem, Kmar Bayya, and Khiriya bin Ayyad, three aristocractic women who resisted the patriarchal structures of their societies by organizing and participating in intellectual salons for men and women and advocating social reform; Qaid Najim al-Akhsassi, an ex-slave and military officer, who fought against French and Spanish colonial expansion; and Boubeker al-Ghandjawi, a nearly illiterate trader who succeeded, though his diverse connections, in establishing important relations between the Moroccan sultan and the representative of the British government. Although based on individual and local perspectives, Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean reveals new and unrecognized trans-local connections across the Muslim world, illuminating our understanding of these societies beyond narrow elite circles.

Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean

Download Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477310916
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean by : Odile Moreau

Download or read book Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean written by Odile Moreau and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subaltern studies, the study of non-elite or underrepresented people, have revolutionized the writing of Middle Eastern history. Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean represents the next step in this transformation. The book explores the lives of eleven nonconformists who became agents of political and social change, actively organizing new forms of resistance—against either colonial European regimes or the traditional societies in which they lived—that disrupted the status quo, in some cases, with dramatic results. These case studies highlight cross-border connections in the Mediterranean world, exploring how these channels were navigated. Chapters in the book examine the lives of subversives and mavericks, such as Tawhida ben Shaykh, the first Arab woman to receive a medical degree; Mokhtar al-Ayari, a radical Tunisian labor leader; Nazli Hanem, Kmar Bayya, and Khiriya bin Ayyad, three aristocractic women who resisted the patriarchal structures of their societies by organizing and participating in intellectual salons for men and women and advocating social reform; Qaid Najim al-Akhsassi, an ex-slave and military officer, who fought against French and Spanish colonial expansion; and Boubeker al-Ghandjawi, a nearly illiterate trader who succeeded, though his diverse connections, in establishing important relations between the Moroccan sultan and the representative of the British government. Although based on individual and local perspectives, Subversives and Mavericks in the Muslim Mediterranean reveals new and unrecognized trans-local connections across the Muslim world, illuminating our understanding of these societies beyond narrow elite circles.

Empire Unbound

Download Empire Unbound PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192863118
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (928 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Empire Unbound by : Gavin Murray-Miller

Download or read book Empire Unbound written by Gavin Murray-Miller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empire Unbound argues that European empires were not the bounded, stable entities that imperialists imagined. Gavin Murray-Miller demonstrates that the era of 'new imperialism' which arose in the late 19th century fostered connections and synergies between regional powers that influenced the trajectories of imperial states in fundamental ways.

Revolutionary Europe

Download Revolutionary Europe PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350020028
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Revolutionary Europe by : Gavin Murray-Miller

Download or read book Revolutionary Europe written by Gavin Murray-Miller and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2021 Revolutionary Europe is an original examination of radical political movements during Europe's long 19th century. It employs both national and transnational contexts, incorporating new debates in Atlantic history, empire studies and cultural history to give a comprehensive narrative of the period from 1775 to 1922. Rather than assessing revolution as a purely theoretical, socially-driven force or a structural phenomenon, the book presents revolution as a process of community building and cultural identification born from instances of acute social and political crisis. Taking into account various moments of political upheaval during the 19th century, including the French, Russian and 1848 revolutions, it explores the ways in which political actors attempted to construct new definitions of sovereignty and social unity in a period characterized by vast social, economic and governmental change. In a wide-ranging text that covers Britain and much of continental Europe in detail, as well as reaching out to the Americas and Atlantic and Mediterranean Worlds, Gavin Murray-Miller provides an authoritative transnational study of revolution in the 19th-century age of high nationalism.

Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950

Download Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474430635
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950 by : Anthony Gorman

Download or read book Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950 written by Anthony Gorman and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to look critically at digital technologies and the role they play within queer lives in contemporary India

Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934

Download Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031044657
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934 by : Stefan Berger

Download or read book Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934 written by Stefan Berger and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection offers a timely and original perspective on the many upheavals and revolutions that broke out across the world during the earlytwentieth century. With previous research tending to confine revolutions within national borders, this book sets out to place them within a broader global sphere of thought and action. The authors explore the time phase between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Asturian Revolution of 1934, including cases from South Africa, Australia, China, the Middle East and Latin America. Providing insights from leading scholars in the field, this collection highlights the interconnectedness and transnationalism of upheavals and revolutions, offering a new approach which integrates political, social and cultural history. Chapter 8 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via Link.springer.com

A Slave Between Empires

Download A Slave Between Empires PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231549555
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Slave Between Empires by : M'hamed Oualdi

Download or read book A Slave Between Empires written by M'hamed Oualdi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In June 1887, a man known as General Husayn, a manumitted slave turned dignitary in the Ottoman province of Tunis, passed away in Florence after a life crossing empires. As a youth, Husayn was brought from Circassia to Turkey, where he was sold as a slave. In Tunis, he ascended to the rank of general before French conquest forced his exile to the northern shores of the Mediterranean. His death was followed by wrangling over his estate that spanned a surprising array of actors: Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II and his viziers; the Tunisian, French, and Italian governments; and representatives of Muslim and Jewish diasporic communities. A Slave Between Empires investigates Husayn’s transimperial life and the posthumous battle over his fortune to recover the transnational dimensions of North African history. M’hamed Oualdi places Husayn within the international context of the struggle between Ottoman and French forces for control of the Mediterranean amid social and intellectual ferment that crossed empires. Oualdi considers this part of the world not as a colonial borderland but as a central space where overlapping imperial ambitions transformed dynamic societies. He explores how the transition between Ottoman rule and European colonial domination was felt in the daily lives of North African Muslims, Christians, and Jews and how North Africans conceived of and acted upon this shift. Drawing on a wide range of Arabic, French, Italian, and English sources, A Slave Between Empires is a groundbreaking transimperial microhistory that demands a major analytical shift in the conceptualization of North African history.

Across Legal Lines

Download Across Legal Lines PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300225083
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Across Legal Lines by : Jessica M. Marglin

Download or read book Across Legal Lines written by Jessica M. Marglin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A previously untold story of Jewish-Muslim relations in modern Morocco, showing how law facilitated Jews’ integration into the broader Moroccan society in which they lived Morocco went through immense upheaval in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through the experiences of a single Jewish family, Jessica Marglin charts how the law helped Jews to integrate into Muslim society—until colonial reforms abruptly curtailed their legal mobility. Drawing on a broad range of archival documents, Marglin expands our understanding of contemporary relations between Jews and Muslims and changes the way we think about Jewish history, the Middle East, and the nature of legal pluralism.

Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East

Download Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474427715
Total Pages : 779 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East by : Ball Anna Ball

Download or read book Edinburgh Companion to the Postcolonial Middle East written by Ball Anna Ball and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-14 with total page 779 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Edinburgh Companion seeks to develop a postcolonial framework for addressing the Middle East. The first collection of essays on this subject, it assembles some of the world's foremost postcolonialists to explore the critical, theoretical and disciplinary possibilities that inquiry into this region opens for postcolonial studies. Throughout its twenty-four chapters, its focus is on literary and cultural critique. It draws on texts and contexts from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries as case studies, and deploys the concept of 'post/colonial modernity' to reveal the enduring impact of colonial and imperial power on the shaping of the region. And it covers a wide and significant range of political, social, and cultural issues in the Middle East during that period - including the heritage of Orientalism in the region; the roots and contemporary branches of the Israel-Palestine conflict; colonial history, state formation and cultures of resistance in Egypt, Turkey, the Maghreb and the wider Arab world; the clash of tradition and modernity in regional and transnational expressions of Islam; the politics of gender and sexuality in the Arab world; the ongoing crises in Libya, Iraq, Iran and Syria; the Arab Spring; and the Middle Eastern refugee crisis in Europe.

The Long End of the First World War

Download The Long End of the First World War PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Campus Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3593508621
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (935 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Long End of the First World War by : Anorthe Wetzel

Download or read book The Long End of the First World War written by Anorthe Wetzel and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fall marks the centennial of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, the agreement that put a stop to the hostilities of World War I. But was the end of this historic conflict really as clearly defined as we think? The Long End of the First World War takes aim at the notion of a static and final ceasefire, revealing it to be the result of European narratives that ignored the truly global aftermath of the war. The contributors to this volume examine the war's effect from multiple angles, taking into account the experiences of prisoners of war, demobilized soldiers, women, and children from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and investigating the social, economic, and ecological results of the conflict. The Long End of the First World War serves as a complement to the commemorations of the Armistice we'll surely see this year, asking us to consider who and what ends up in the historical record and what ought to be rediscovered.

The Middle East and Islamic World Reader

Download The Middle East and Islamic World Reader PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 0802194524
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (21 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Middle East and Islamic World Reader by : Marvin E. Gettleman

Download or read book The Middle East and Islamic World Reader written by Marvin E. Gettleman and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The many facets of Middle Eastern history and politics are admirably represented in this far-ranging anthology.” —Publishers Weekly In this insightful anthology, historians Marvin E. Gettleman and Stuart Schaar have assembled a broad selection of documents and contemporary scholarship to give a view of the history of the peoples from the core Islamic lands, from the Golden Age of Islam to today. With carefully framed essays beginning each chapter and brief introductory notes accompanying over seventy readings, the anthology reveals the multifaceted societies and political systems of the Islamic world. Selections range from theological texts illuminating the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, to diplomatic exchanges and state papers, to memoirs and literary works, to manifestos of Islamic radicals. This newly revised and expanded edition covers the dramatic changes in the region since 2005, and the popular uprisings that swept from Tunisia in January 2011 through Egypt, Libya, and beyond. The Middle East and Islamic World Reader is a fascinating historical survey of complex societies that—now more than ever—are crucial for us to understand. “Ambitious . . . A timely work, it focuses mainly on sociopolitical texts dating from the rise of Islam to the debates concerning U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 world.” —Choice

Bedouin Ethnobotany

Download Bedouin Ethnobotany PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816539995
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Bedouin Ethnobotany by : James P. Mandaville

Download or read book Bedouin Ethnobotany written by James P. Mandaville and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Bedouin asking a fellow tribesman about grazing conditions in other parts of the country says first simply, “Fih hayah?” or “Is there life?” A desert Arab’s knowledge of the sparse vegetation is tied directly to his life and livelihood. Bedouin Ethnobotany offers the first detailed study of plant uses among the Najdi Arabic–speaking tribal peoples of eastern Saudi Arabia. It also makes a major contribution to the larger project of ethnobotany by describing aspects of a nomadic peoples’ conceptual relationships with the plants of their homeland. The modern theoretical basis for studies of the folk classification and nomenclature of plants was developed from accounts of peoples who were small-scale agriculturists and, to a lesser extent, hunter-gatherers. This book fills a major gap by extending such study into the world of the nomadic pastoralist and exploring the extent to which these patterns are valid for another major subsistence type. James P. Mandaville, an Arabic speaker who lived in Saudi Arabia for many years, focuses first on the role of plants in Bedouin life, explaining their uses for livestock forage, firewood, medicinals, food, and dyestuffs, and examining other practical purposes. He then explicates the conceptual and linguistic aspects of his subject, applying the theory developed by Brent Berlin and others to a previously unstudied population. Mandaville also looks at the long history of Bedouin plant nomenclature, finding that very little has changed among the names and classifications in nearly eleven centuries. An essential volume for anyone interested in the interaction between human culture and plant life, Bedouin Ethnobotany will stand as a definitive source for years to come.

Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus

Download Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226142821
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (428 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus by : Georgi M. Derluguian

Download or read book Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus written by Georgi M. Derluguian and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-07-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanib—who from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.

The Sultan's Renegades

Download The Sultan's Renegades PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192509047
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Sultan's Renegades by : Tobias P. Graf

Download or read book The Sultan's Renegades written by Tobias P. Graf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the renegade - a European Christian or Jew who had converted to Islam and was now serving the Ottoman sultan - is omnipresent in all genres produced by those early modern Christian Europeans who wrote about the Ottoman Empire. As few contemporaries failed to remark, converts were disproportionately represented among those who governed, administered, and fought for the sultan. Unsurprisingly, therefore, renegades have attracted considerable attention from historians of Europe as well as students of European literature. Until very recently, however, Ottomanists have been surprisingly silent on the presence of Christian-European converts in the Ottoman military-administrative elite. The Sultan's Renegades inserts these 'foreign' converts into the context of Ottoman elite life to reorient the discussion of these individuals away from the present focus on their exceptionality, towards a qualified appreciation of their place in the Ottoman imperial enterprise and the Empire's relations with its neighbours in Christian Europe. Drawing heavily on Central European sources, this study highlights the deep political, religious, and cultural entanglements between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe beyond the Mediterranean Basin as the 'shared world' par excellence. The existence of such trans-imperial subjects is not only symptomatic of the Empire's ability to attract and integrate people of a great diversity of backgrounds, it also illustrates the extent to which the Ottomans participated in processes of religious polarization usually considered typical of Christian Europe in this period. Nevertheless, Christian Europeans remained ambivalent about those they dismissed as apostates and traitors, frequently relying on them for support in the pursuit of familial and political interests.

Eqbal Ahmad

Download Eqbal Ahmad PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231539924
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eqbal Ahmad by : Stuart Schaar

Download or read book Eqbal Ahmad written by Stuart Schaar and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eqbal Ahmad (1930?–1999) was a bold and original activist, journalist, and theorist who brought uncommon perspective to the rise of militant Islam, the conflict in Kashmir, the involvement of the United States in Vietnam, and the geopolitics of the Cold War. A long-time friend and intellectual collaborator of Ahmad, Stuart Schaar presents in this book previously unseen materials by and about his colleague, having traveled through the United States, India, Pakistan, western Europe, and North Africa to connect Ahmad's experiences to the major currents of modern history. Ahmad was the first to recognize that former ally Osama bin Laden would turn against the United States. He anticipated the rapidly shifting loyalties of terrorists and understood that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would provoke violence and sectarian strife in Iraq. Ahmad had great compassion for the victims of the proxy wars waged by the leading Cold War powers, and he frequently championed unpopular causes, such as the need to extend the rights of Palestinians and protect Bosnians and Kosovars in a disintegrating Yugoslavia. Toward the end of his life, Ahmad worked tirelessly to broker a peace between India and Pakistan and to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the subcontinent. As novel and necessary as ever, Ahmad's remarkable vision is here preserved and extended to reveal the extent to which he was involved in the political and historical conflicts of his time.

Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952

Download Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131751808X
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952 by : Şuhnaz Yilmaz

Download or read book Turkish-American Relations, 1800-1952 written by Şuhnaz Yilmaz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to take the reader on a journey along the intricate web of Turkish-American relations. It critically examines the process, during which the relations evolved from those of strangers into an occasionally troubled, yet resilient alliance. Through the extensive use of Turkish, American and British archival documents and numerous private paper and manuscript collections, the book examines Turkish-American relations from 1800 to 1952, starting with the earliest contacts and ending with the institutionalization of the alliance after Turkey’s entry into NATO. Its purpose is to provide a better understanding of the significant issues pertaining to Turkish-American relations such as the impact of international developments on foreign policy decisions, the role of key figures and organizations in shaping the relations, the interaction of political, economic, cultural and military factors in policy formation and the importance of mutual perceptions in shaping actual relations. The analysis also situates Turkish-American relations in the larger context of diplomatic history, through an evaluation of how the United States’ relations with Turkey fit into the general framework of American foreign policy and also through an examination of the conduct and changing priorities of Turkish foreign policy in this era. Such a study not only enhances our knowledge of Turkish-American relations for the period of 1800-1952, but also provides further insight into the relations during the Cold War and its aftermath.

The Circassian

Download The Circassian PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190862688
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Circassian by : Benjamin C. Fortna

Download or read book The Circassian written by Benjamin C. Fortna and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Esref Kusçubasi remains controversial in Turkey over fifty years after his death. Elsewhere the man sometimes called the "Turkish Lawrence of Arabia" is far less known but his life offers fascinating insights into the traumatic, increasingly violent struggles that ended the Ottoman Empire and ushered in the modern Middle East. Drawing on Esref's private papers for the first time, these pages tell the story of the making of a headstrong "self-sacrificing" officer committed to defending the empire's shrinking borders. Esref took on a string of special assignments for Enver Pasha, the rapidly rising star of the Ottoman military, first in Libya against the Italians, then in the Balkan Wars and World War I, before being captured by the forces of the Arab Revolt and turned over to the British and imprisoned on Malta. Released in 1920, he joined the national resistance movement in Anatolia but fell out with Mustafa Kemal's leadership and switched sides, earning him banishment from the Turkish Republic at its founding and exile until the 1950s. Never far from the action or controversy, Esref's dynamic story provides an important counterpoint to the standard narrative of the transition from empire to nation state.