Hist 103 The Middle East Since Muhammad Spring 2024 Tooley Schedule Schedule Schedule Schedule


The readings listed for a given day are meant to be read by the beginning of class on that day.  There will be two movies:  Lawrence of Arabia and Exodus.  We will arrange a time outside class to watch those. "Text" refers to the Goldschmidt textbook, A Concise History of the Middle East.


Jan 31—Introduction. Geography and Other Conditions.

Feb 2--The pre-Islamic Middle East and some Ancient History.
    Read Text ch. 1
    And watch carefully this very accurate and useful eight-minute history of the Roman Empire on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hxwSzB_DI

5 Feb—Empires, Trade, and Mecca. 
    Read Text ch. 2.
    For reference, and use in class, take a look at my handout on great Empires in the Middle East
    And watch this cool modern-day transit through the Suez Canal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwdU2cYRbnM
(you can skip the short part about souvenirs being sold aboard the container ship!)

7 Feb--Muhammad and Early Islam.  Text ch. 3.

9 Feb—Conquest: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Others. Text ch. 4

12 Feb—Q&A:  Early Islam.

14--Map Quiz No. 1.  Caliphate!
    Read Text ch. 5.

16 Feb—Classical Islamic Civilization: Networks, Foundations, Mystics, Poets, and Historians 
Read Text ch. 7 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 8 (12th edition)--Same chapter but numbered differently in the two editions.

AND watch "The Sufi Way," a classic documentary on a branch of Islam, roughly 25 min.:
        Either at DailyMotion:  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xltjc1
        or Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3qE42Xo7Vw

19 Feb--The Rise of Shi'a and The Break-Up of the Caliphate, 1000 to 1400.   
also text ch 6 (11th edition) OR Text chs. 6 and 7 (12th edition)
Also read this short article on the famous scholar and traveler, Ibn Battuta
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/expansion-interconnection/exploration-interconnection/a/ibn-battuta

21 Feb--The Aftermath of the Caliphate: Crusaders, Seljuks, and Others
Read Text ch. 8 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 9 (12th edition)

23 Feb--The Ottoman Empire.  (this material will not be tested until exam II)
    No reading


Unit Two--The Ottoman Empire and Others: From Crusades to World War II

26 Feb—Exam 1

28 Mar--The Ottomans and the World: Special Focus on Coffee
Venetian Ambassadors' Reports (a pdf of a book chapter)
     This is a substantial excerpt from the book Pursuit of Power:  Venetian Ambassadors' Reports
this is a  pdf, 4.5MB to download
It is still a bit pixellated at this size.  For a bigger pdf that makes the pictures clearer, this one is 17MB, but pretty clear:  here.
Also read
Text ch. 9 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 10 (12th edition)

1 Mar—The "Near East" and the World: Orientalism, Politics, and Change
Read two chapters from Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (Read Chapters 44 and 45). Etext is online
at:  http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaInno.html

4 Mar--Reform, Imperialism, and Nationalism. 
    Text chs. 10 and 11 (11th edition) OR Text chs. 11 and 12 (12th edition)

6 Mar—Zionism.
Read this brief history of Zionism
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/zionism
And read carefully this very brief obituary for a prominent contributor to the Zionist cause.
Obituary for Peter Schweitzer

8 Mar—Map Quiz No. 2. The Young Turk Revolution and the Persian Constitutional Revolution.
no reading (but look ahead to the film Lawrence of Arabia, a very long movie, which you will do a double-value reading quiz over on Monday. See below.)

SPRING BREAK

18 Mar—World War I and the Middle East
    Read Text ch. 12 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 13 (12th edition)
    And look thoroughly through the website "The Forgotten:  The Armenian Genocide" http://www.theforgotten.org/site/intro_eng.html
(please look at and listen to this website thoroughly, spending at least an hour perusing all the text and seeing all the video clips, photos, etc. Careful: some of the information, especially the photographic elements, is quite gruesome.)
(optional: a very fine lecture on the Ottoman Empire and WWI, by Tulane Professor Ken Harl. Thirty minutes. Good details, especially on the military aspects:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/the-ottoman-empire-total-war/

20 Mar—Discussion of the film, Lawrence of Arabia.  
    Before class on this day, be sure to have watched the classic movie, Lawrence of Arabia. Please watch the movie carefully. We will have a quiz in class and discuss it thoroughly. You are probably more capable than I am at finding a free version of this 1962 movie starring Peter O'Toole.

But if you can't find it there or elsewhere free, you can spend a few dollars and rent it on Amazon Prime. I have a copy in DVD which I would be willing to loan. I recommend seeing this classic on the biggest screen possible.  Make plenty of time for it; it is 217 minutes long! But in addition to relating to this period of history, it is regarded as one of the great movies of all time. 

Warning: I want you to watch this movie with full concentration: no phones, no friends talking, etc. See it for content, feeling, etc. Remember, when we discuss this in class, and you say "I don't remember," that will not cut it. Actually watch the movie carefully.

22 Mar-- The Middle East and the Results of World War I. 
    Read Hunt Tooley, "Peace in the Middle East:  Empire, Oil, and the Reshaping of the Middle East After World War I"    

25 Mar—New Borders and Modernizing Rulers
    Read Text ch. 13 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 14  (12th edition)
    And the Wikipedia entry on "Atatürk's Reforms in Turkey":  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atatürk%27s_Reforms   

27 Mar—Egypt!
    Text ch. 14 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 15 (12th edition)

29 Mar--Zionism and Palestine Between the Wars
    Read text ch. 15 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 16 (12th edition)

1 Apr--Exam 2

Unit 3, The Middle East: World War II to the Present

3 Apr--World War II in the Middle East
From "The Great Courses Daily," please read this page carefully.
AND a lecture I gave a few years ago, "World War II:
Western Imperialism and the New Middle East."

5 Apr--The Aftermath of World War II: The Context of Decolonization.

8 Apr--Eclipse Day!!
   

10 Apr—Case Studies: Decolonization: Focus on Egypt

12 Apr--The Creation of Israel.
    Text ch. 16 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 17 (12th edition)


15 Apr--Beginning of class, Map Quiz No. 3.
Iran in the Wake of World War II. 
    Readings:  Hunt Tooley, "Engineering Tragedy."

17 Apr—The Cold War, the Middle East, and Oil. 
    Text ch. 17 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 18 (12th edition)

19 Apr—Israel, Lebanon and Their Neighbors in the Seventies and Eighties

22 Apr--Arabs and Israelis and Other Matters.
Before class, watch this Israeli movie from 2008, based on personal experiences.  It is called Waltz with Bashir, by Ari Folman, and it is available on Prime for $3.59, though you may be able to find it free somewhere else. Discussion of Waltz With Bashir. If you prefer, you can instead read the Ari Folman graphic novel, Waltz With Bashir. They contain the same material, but one in sort of dream cartoon form, and the other a graphic novel. Please watch, or read, this carefully and be ready for a 2X quiz and intensive class discussion.

24 Apr—Iran, the Shah, and the Revolution
Read the Wikipedia entry the Iranian Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution.   
And read all of Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis.

26 Apr--The Reassertion of Islamic Power
    Text chs. 18  (11th edition) OR Text chs. 19 (12th edition)


29 Apr—The Iraqi Wars: 1980 to the Present. 
    Text ch. 19 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 20 (12th edition)

1 May--After 9/11
    Text ch. 20 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 21 (12th edition)

3 May--Arab Spring
    Text ch. 21 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 22 (12th edition)

6 May--The Middlle East Environment and Health
    Text ch. 22 (11th edition) OR pdf of the same for those who have the 12th edition (they took out this chapter in the 12th, or at least I can't find it folded into some other chapter of the 12th). I will get this to you if you can't borrow someone's 11th edition.

8 May--Last Day of Class.  Disaster AND Business As Usual: Global Logistics, Destabilization,  Cartoons, and Refugees
    12th edition readers: Text ch. 22. For 11th edition readers, a pdf of the same.



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