"Focused on the study of Middle Eastern economic history, this volume provides a comprehensive survey of the discipline and examines its major theoretical and empirical themes. Despite the relative neglect of economic history in Middle Eastern studies, this book makes a case for its importance as a discipline of study. On the one hand, it shows promise in illuminating the economic base of historical trends and events; on the other, it can elucidate the historical foundations of economic continuity and change. The chapters employ an array of theoretical and methodological approaches and ultimately demonstrate how economics and history, along with political economy, complement each other in studying the Middle East. Among the substantive topics explored are the trajectories of the Arab Spring, institutional change and economic development in the early Ottoman Empire, the destructive effects of the reordering property rights in Iraq by the American-led occupation authority, the evolution of the political economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the determinants of movements in the yields of Egyptian and Ottoman sovereign debt following political and economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of economic history, political economy, and the Middle East"--

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2004. Did medieval Muslims have the concept of a 'social class'? If not, can we usefully employ the term in analysing their society? Were there such things as guilds in the medieval Middle East? Would we understand the economic de- cline of Mamluk Egypt better if we used paradigms derived from the study of the economic history of England and Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? How much can the enormous fiscal archive of the Ottoman Empire tell us about population history? Why was the Middle East so backward, if indeed it was, compared with the rest of the Afro-Asian world in the nineteenth century? Have Iran and Iraq better prospects for economic growth than otherwise comparable countries thanks to their oil royalties? Or are these paradoxically a hindrance rather than a help? The study of the economic history of the Middle East in Islamic times is notoriously underdeveloped. This volume contains papers discussed at an international conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1967, together with three short critical essays which attempt to tie them together. Some papers are specific contributions to research, others survey wider areas. The volume is not a comprehensive history or a systematic inventory, but it is hoped that, in addition to presenting a set of papers which are interesting in themselves, it will give the reader a tolerable idea of the state of studies in the field.

This text offers an examination of the economic history of the principal Arab countries, Turkey and Israel since 1918. Using the state as its major economic analysis, it charts the growth of national income and issues of welfare and distribution over two periods, 1918-1945 and 1945-1990. Important trends are explored, including the patterns of colonial economic management, import substitution, the impact of the 1970s oil boom, and the current process of liberalization and structural adjustment

The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary. This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years. In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.

This volume explores major theoretical and empirical themes in the study of the economic history of the Middle East. Despite the relative neglect of economic history in Middle Eastern studies, this book makes a case for its importance as a discipline of study. On the one hand, it shows promise in illuminating the economic base of historical trends and events; on the other, it can elucidate the historical foundations of economic continuity and change. The chapters employ an array of theoretical and methodological approaches and ultimately demonstrate how economics and history, along with political economy, complement each other in studying the Middle East. Among the substantive topics explored are the trajectories of the Arab Spring, institutional change and economic development in the early Ottoman Empire, the destructive effects of the reordering property rights in Iraq by the American-led occupation authority, the evolution of the political economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the determinants of movements in the yields of Egyptian and Ottoman sovereign debt following political and economic crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of economic history, political economy, and the Middle East.