Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 / Edition 1

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Drawing on previously unused primary sources, this book paints an intimate and vivid portrait of Palestinian society on the eve of modernity. Through the voices of merchants, peasants, and Ottoman officials, Beshara Doumani offers a major revision of standard interpretations of Ottoman history by investigating the ways in which urban-rural dynamics in a provincial setting appropriated and gave meaning to the larger forces of Ottoman rule and European economic expansion. He traces the relationship between culture, politics, and economic change by looking at how merchant families constructed trade networks and cultivated political power, and by showing how peasants defined their identity and formulated their notions of justice and political authority.

Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history.
Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780520203709

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: University of California Press

Publication Date: 10-12-1995

Pages: 340

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Beshara Doumani is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

List of Maps, Plates, and Tables
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Note on Translation and Transliteration
INTRODUCTION: PALESTINE AND THE OTTOMAN INTERIOR
Toward a History of Provincial Life in the Ottoman Interior
Rethinking Ottoman Palestine
Sources
Approach and Methodology
1. THE MEANINGS OF AUTONOMY
Jabal Nablus as a Social Space
Boundaries in Time and Space
Conclusion
2. FAMILY, CULTURE, AND TRADE
Textile Merchants
The Arafat Family
Regional Trade Networks
Local Trade Networks
Conclusion
J· COTTON, TEXTILES, AND THE POLITICS OF TRADE
Cotton and the Politics of Monopoly
The Politics of Free Trade
Textiles: Resilience and Restructuring
Conclusion
4· THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF OLIVE OIL
From the Hands of the Peasants
A Forced Marriage?
Redefining Identity and Political Authority
Conclusion
5. SOAP, CLASS, AND STATE
Soap and the Economy
Soap and Society
Soap and the State
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
The Labyrinthine Journey
The Discourses of Modernity
Appendix 1. Weights and Measures
Appendix 2. Court Records, Judges, and Private
Family Papers
Appendix 3· Soap Factories and the Process of Production
Glossary
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

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