Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800

by Nelida Fuccaro

Overview

In this path-breaking and multi-layered account of one of the least explored societies in the Middle East, Nelida Fuccaro examines the political and social life of the Gulf city and its coastline, as exemplified by Manama in Bahrain. Written as an ethnography of space, politics and community, it addresses the changing relationship between urban development, politics and society before and after the discovery of oil. By using a variety of local sources and oral histories, Fuccaro questions the role played by the British Empire and oil in state-making. Instead, she draws attention to urban residents, elites and institutions as active participants in state and nation building. She also examines how the city has continued to provide a source of political, social and sectarian identity since the early nineteenth century, challenging the view that the advent of oil and modernity represented a radical break in the urban past of the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511699306
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/03/2009
Series:	Cambridge Middle East Studies , #30
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Nelida Fuccaro is a Lecturer in the History Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Her previous publications include The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq (1999).

Table of Contents

List of abbreviations; List of maps; Acknowledgements; Note on transliteration and terminology; Glossary; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Indigenous state traditions and the dialectics of urbanisation in Bahrain, 1602–1923; 2. The making of Gulf port towns before oil; 3. Ordering space, politics and community in Manama, 1880s–1919; 4. Restructuring city and state: the municipality and local government; 5. 'Disorder', political sociability and the evolution of the urban public sphere; 6. City and countryside in modern Bahrain; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of persons, tribes and families; Index of subjects; Index of places.

Editorial Reviews

"Nelida Fuccaro's work is a valuable resource for those scholars seeing to understand modern Bahrain" - Thomas DeGeorges, American University of Sharjah, H-Net

From the Publisher