The Modern Middle East

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at Edmund Burke's book, 'Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East'. Burke's book consists of a collection of essays, documenting the life stories of peasants, villagers, pastoralists and urbanites.

From the Paper:

"Defensive Modernization defines the transformation of the Arab political, cultural and social worlds. Artisan shops in the Bazaar were gradually replaced by factories and industrial complexes. Smokestacks and skyscrapers increasingly rivaled minarets in the Middle East's newly urbanized skyline. Eventually new Western forms of communication such as the telegraph and telephone, railroads, trucks and airplanes displaced human and animal transport. In the period after the end of the Second World War, when the Middle East finally threw off the burden of colonialism, defensive modernization became an essential part of new Arab states investiture into nationalism. Projects on a grand scale such as the Aswan Dam in Egypt, or the drive for modernism at a pace that overrode traditions in the Shah's Iran are all symptomatic of the concept."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Burke, Edmund, III. Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, New York, I.B..Taurus & Co. Ltd., '993

More papers on The Modern Middle East:

• Analytical Essay # 64781 : "Joel Beinin's "Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East"
• Book Review # 66055 : "Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East"
• Book Review # 94434 : "Modern Middle East"

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