Culture and Hegemony in the Colonial Middle East

Download or read book Culture and Hegemony in the Colonial Middle East written by Y. Noorani and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-04-26 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a study of the nature and origin of nationality and modern social ideals in the Middle East, particularly Egypt, in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Bringing together writings on political and social reform with literary works, Noorani challenges dominant assumptions about the emergence of modernity. It shows that while nationalist, liberal, and democratic ideals emerged in the Middle East under European influence, these ideals were nevertheless created out of existing cultural values by reformers and intellectuals. The central element of this process, the book argues, was the transformation of virtue into nationality.