The Press in the Middle East and North Africa 1850-1950 ― Politics, Social History and Culture

The press is central to our understanding of the development of free speech, civil society, political life and cultural expression. This volume presents twelve detailed studies dealing with cases drawn from the Middle East and North Africa in the period before independence (c.1850-1950). Framed by an authoritative introduction these explore the emergence of this important medium, its practitioners and its function as a forum and agent in political, social and cultural life in the Middle East. In taking up this focus, the collection argues that the press is both a vector and an agent of history that facilitates entrée into the complex process of political, social and cultural transformation that the region was undergoing during this critical period.

Anthony Gorman is Senior Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Edinburgh. He is co-editor (with Sossie Kasbarian) of Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualising Community (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and co-editor (with Marilyn Booth) of The Long 1890s in Egypt: Colonial Quiescence, Subterranean Resistance (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Didier Monciaud is a PhD candidate in Middle Eastern History at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris and Associate Research Fellow at Groupe de recherche sur le Maghreb et le Moyen Orient, University Diderot Paris VI, Paris.