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Britain and the Middle East: New Historical Perspectives on the Eastern Question
Author(s) -
Tusan Michelle
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00666.x
Subject(s) - contest , historiography , middle east , scholarship , empire , frontier , history , politics , field (mathematics) , democracy , foreign policy , ancient history , political science , law , archaeology , mathematics , pure mathematics
Recent work on Britain and the Middle East promises to reinvigorate the field by introducing a new set of questions and archival sources. This essay reviews current scholarship by looking back at the historiography of the Eastern Question. First defined as a field in the wake of WWI, the study of British foreign and domestic policy in the Ottoman Empire inspired generations of historical work on the region. This early wave of historiography provokingly demonstrated that the contest for the Middle East largely happened at home and helped shape the priorities of modern liberal democratic political culture. Contemporary events, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the emergence of new methodologies have contributed to a shift in historical writing from the ‘Eastern Question’ to more regionally focused studies of the ‘Middle East.’ This shift has recast the field as an important new frontier of the New Imperial History.