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Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900
Drawing on previously unused primary sources, this book paints an intimate and vivid portrait of Palestinian society on the eve of modernity. Through the voices of merchants, peasants, and Ottoman officials, Beshara Doumani offers a major revision of standard interpretations of Ottoman history by investigating the ways in which urban-rural dynamics in a provincial setting appropriated and gave meaning to the larger forces of Ottoman rule and European economic expansion. He traces the relationship between culture, politics, and economic change by looking at how merchant families constructed trade networks and cultivated political power, and by showing how peasants defined their identity and formulated their notions of justice and political authority.
Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history.
Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history.
369 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 20, 2015
You won't know how fascinated you are by the economy of an ancient city until you start reading Doumani's engrossing portrait of eighteenth-century Nablus. It's written with the thorough, poignant eye of a biographer and the tacit but relentless authority of a historian: far from the "wasteland" it's been made out to be in more biased political histories, Palestine had a diverse, thriving economy. Also interesting was the robust capitalism, entrepreneurship, and speculation banking linked all levels of Palestinian society--long before it engaged with the West.
I am supposed to be reading this as research on soap factories, but found myself sidetracked into reading the whole text. It makes me appreciate how detailed, and perhaps even how accurate, a rendering of one's life can be made by looking only at one's business activities: orders, contracts, inheritances, suppliers, and sales. I speak mostly as a small businesswoman, but generally, as someone living in the West, it's difficult to not speculate at times that we are so deeply imprinted by the market that it distorts identity. The text was a clarifying reminder that humans are transactional creatures, and an economy is an intrinsic part of the human environment.
April 17, 2015
Beshara Doumani’s objective in Rediscovering Palestine is simple in concept but nuanced in execution. Seeking to write a history of Palestine that emphasizes the role of the masses over the elites and focuses on smaller towns and rural areas, the author argues that a study of the city of Nablus, explored primarily through the lens of local sources, is the best way to construct a history of Palestinians as “subjects”, rather than the “objects” they become when engaged through archival material that focuses upon the activities of notables. Highlighting developments in the 19th century, although ostensibly covering the period from 1700 to 1900, his narrative does not unfold chronologically, but instead centers around particular goods that best elucidate the developments that transformed the city into a center that created new socioeconomic relationships, engendered loci for conflicts between state and local power, and fostered transformations in the relationship between the city and the countryside, making Nablus overall the center of the Palestinian region.
Following an introduction that states his objectives without making his arguments entirely clear, Doumani begins with a brief chapter that outlines the political developments that shaped Nablus over the course of two centuries and highlights the factors that led to its relative autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, as well as its economic importance. He identifies four political turning points: the 1657 Ottoman military campaign for central control that introduced new ruling families, sieges in 1771 and 1773 that reflected the rise of Acre, the 1831 occupation by Egypt that restructured the region, and the 1859 destruction of Arraba that ended autonomous rule, all of which marked important moments in centralization. In 1657, seeking to weaken the decentralized networks of rural chiefs who were empowered by violence, the Ottomans sent the military to Nablus to reassert control. In addition to fostering administrative expansion, the expedition left behind military officers that helped found the families that would play decisive roles in local development for years to come. The 1771 and 1773 sieges led by the powerful families of Acre, meanwhile, stirred up conflict among these Nablusi families and was indicative of the former city’s economic and military control of the region. The Egyptian occupation reshaped the region’s local networks and relationships and met with little indigenous resistance at first, but eventually engendered turmoil through excessive taxation and by denying the locals a political voice. When the Egyptians were ousted, European and Ottoman attention turned at first to Jerusalem, leaving a power vacuum that led to civil strife. In response, the state attempted to reassert centralized control and strip Nablus of its autonomy, an objective that it had accomplished by 1859.
Chapter two establishes the importance of textiles and uses it as a means to explore the development of families and trade dynamics. Most important to the former was the building of personal networks, which created cultural capital that could be transformed into economic benefits and advantages in trade. In the latter category, Doumani delineates the nature of regional trade, which centered at first around Egypt, but gradually shifted to Beirut and Damascus as Ottoman centralization tied Nablus more strongly to Greater Syria. At the local level, meanwhile, he emphasizes the mutually beneficial nature of urban-rural relationships and argues that “local trade networks in Jabal Nablus were more than just economic mechanisms constructed for the purposes of exchange. They can be better characterized as dynamic social spaces created by a multitude of actors with competing interests”, but concludes by noting that they also generated tensions. The third chapter utilizes cotton as its commodity and begins with a description of how Acre’s monopolies on the good crumbled by the early 1800s, with Nablus filling the gap shortly thereafter by taking advantage of competitive markets and local networks. Unlike textiles, for which the value waned as European-manufactured substitutes entered the market in greater quantities and at cheaper prices, cotton as a raw material from Nablus was always in demand and faced only limited competition during this era. A period of decline, however, encouraged local actors to make the most of new political outlets offered by the Tanzimat reforms and resist the implementation of measures that did not benefit them economically or stripped their power, actions that placed them for the first time in conflict with the central government. The state’s restructuring process eventually won out and took a serious toll on the locals, but industry managed to survive due to several factors, including the difficulty of European penetration and the availability of cheap local materials.
The focus shifts to olives and oil in chapter four, which examines how this valuable commodity ended up being taken away from the hands of the peasantry and being placed in those of the merchants, thus altering the nature of urban-rural relationships by intertwining the two more tightly and shifting the balance of power to the city. The key factor here is moneylending, and Doumani goes to great lengths to delineate the nature and intricacies of this practice, as well as elucidating why it became more popular for merchants (increased economic incentives) and more necessary for peasants (increased tax burdens from a centralizing state). Yet the author presents more complexity than traditional narratives that emphasize the emerging socioeconomic disparities and exploitation between moneylenders and peasants and argues that class segmentation among the peasantry was also a source of conflict. Through the course of these struggles between the “rural middle class” and the majority who did not benefit from economic developments, the peasants themselves played a key role in integrating themselves more deeply into the urban aegis. He also demonstrates that the 1858 Land Law, under which peasants allowed notables to register their lands for them and thus gain legal control, only exacerbated the problem of land consolidation, rather than causing it. The final chapter argues that soap was a key industry in Nablus and thus became an economic power base for the new urban elite; thus while oil allowed the merchants to rise in stature, soap allowed them stay there and was representative of their new status. High barriers to entry ensured that only the wealthiest of merchants, and those with the proper connections, were able to take advantage of this booming field, which led to “three trends in the changing composition of soap-factory owners: the decline of the old urban elite during the first two decades of the nineteenth century; the rise of a recently urbanized elite during the next two decades; and, finally, the eventual domination by the merchant community in the 1850s and 1860s”. These new elites then became involved in further conflicts with the state as its centralizing drives conflicted with their economic structure and autonomy, but lost out ultimately to the Ottoman Empire’s designs.
Although Doumani’s conclusion is an excellent summary, and the main points of each chapter are well-recapitulated throughout, the exact nature of his argument can be unclear at times due to its complexity and the way it is structured throughout the work. Overall, however, Rediscovering Palestine is an unconventional and refreshing take on the development of Ottoman Palestine and utilizes its unique local sources to their fullest capacity. Although it would probably not be accessible to a non-specialist, and certainly not a casual reader, this work is more than worth the time it takes to review carefully, for both its novel methodology and engrossing perspective and narrative.
Following an introduction that states his objectives without making his arguments entirely clear, Doumani begins with a brief chapter that outlines the political developments that shaped Nablus over the course of two centuries and highlights the factors that led to its relative autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, as well as its economic importance. He identifies four political turning points: the 1657 Ottoman military campaign for central control that introduced new ruling families, sieges in 1771 and 1773 that reflected the rise of Acre, the 1831 occupation by Egypt that restructured the region, and the 1859 destruction of Arraba that ended autonomous rule, all of which marked important moments in centralization. In 1657, seeking to weaken the decentralized networks of rural chiefs who were empowered by violence, the Ottomans sent the military to Nablus to reassert control. In addition to fostering administrative expansion, the expedition left behind military officers that helped found the families that would play decisive roles in local development for years to come. The 1771 and 1773 sieges led by the powerful families of Acre, meanwhile, stirred up conflict among these Nablusi families and was indicative of the former city’s economic and military control of the region. The Egyptian occupation reshaped the region’s local networks and relationships and met with little indigenous resistance at first, but eventually engendered turmoil through excessive taxation and by denying the locals a political voice. When the Egyptians were ousted, European and Ottoman attention turned at first to Jerusalem, leaving a power vacuum that led to civil strife. In response, the state attempted to reassert centralized control and strip Nablus of its autonomy, an objective that it had accomplished by 1859.
Chapter two establishes the importance of textiles and uses it as a means to explore the development of families and trade dynamics. Most important to the former was the building of personal networks, which created cultural capital that could be transformed into economic benefits and advantages in trade. In the latter category, Doumani delineates the nature of regional trade, which centered at first around Egypt, but gradually shifted to Beirut and Damascus as Ottoman centralization tied Nablus more strongly to Greater Syria. At the local level, meanwhile, he emphasizes the mutually beneficial nature of urban-rural relationships and argues that “local trade networks in Jabal Nablus were more than just economic mechanisms constructed for the purposes of exchange. They can be better characterized as dynamic social spaces created by a multitude of actors with competing interests”, but concludes by noting that they also generated tensions. The third chapter utilizes cotton as its commodity and begins with a description of how Acre’s monopolies on the good crumbled by the early 1800s, with Nablus filling the gap shortly thereafter by taking advantage of competitive markets and local networks. Unlike textiles, for which the value waned as European-manufactured substitutes entered the market in greater quantities and at cheaper prices, cotton as a raw material from Nablus was always in demand and faced only limited competition during this era. A period of decline, however, encouraged local actors to make the most of new political outlets offered by the Tanzimat reforms and resist the implementation of measures that did not benefit them economically or stripped their power, actions that placed them for the first time in conflict with the central government. The state’s restructuring process eventually won out and took a serious toll on the locals, but industry managed to survive due to several factors, including the difficulty of European penetration and the availability of cheap local materials.
The focus shifts to olives and oil in chapter four, which examines how this valuable commodity ended up being taken away from the hands of the peasantry and being placed in those of the merchants, thus altering the nature of urban-rural relationships by intertwining the two more tightly and shifting the balance of power to the city. The key factor here is moneylending, and Doumani goes to great lengths to delineate the nature and intricacies of this practice, as well as elucidating why it became more popular for merchants (increased economic incentives) and more necessary for peasants (increased tax burdens from a centralizing state). Yet the author presents more complexity than traditional narratives that emphasize the emerging socioeconomic disparities and exploitation between moneylenders and peasants and argues that class segmentation among the peasantry was also a source of conflict. Through the course of these struggles between the “rural middle class” and the majority who did not benefit from economic developments, the peasants themselves played a key role in integrating themselves more deeply into the urban aegis. He also demonstrates that the 1858 Land Law, under which peasants allowed notables to register their lands for them and thus gain legal control, only exacerbated the problem of land consolidation, rather than causing it. The final chapter argues that soap was a key industry in Nablus and thus became an economic power base for the new urban elite; thus while oil allowed the merchants to rise in stature, soap allowed them stay there and was representative of their new status. High barriers to entry ensured that only the wealthiest of merchants, and those with the proper connections, were able to take advantage of this booming field, which led to “three trends in the changing composition of soap-factory owners: the decline of the old urban elite during the first two decades of the nineteenth century; the rise of a recently urbanized elite during the next two decades; and, finally, the eventual domination by the merchant community in the 1850s and 1860s”. These new elites then became involved in further conflicts with the state as its centralizing drives conflicted with their economic structure and autonomy, but lost out ultimately to the Ottoman Empire’s designs.
Although Doumani’s conclusion is an excellent summary, and the main points of each chapter are well-recapitulated throughout, the exact nature of his argument can be unclear at times due to its complexity and the way it is structured throughout the work. Overall, however, Rediscovering Palestine is an unconventional and refreshing take on the development of Ottoman Palestine and utilizes its unique local sources to their fullest capacity. Although it would probably not be accessible to a non-specialist, and certainly not a casual reader, this work is more than worth the time it takes to review carefully, for both its novel methodology and engrossing perspective and narrative.
February 11, 2013
You can't help but be in awe of Doumani's research in this book. He succeeds in bringing to life the political economy of Jabal Nablus by tracing the history of cotton (textiles) and olive oil (soap) through the eyes of specific families and individuals over the span of centuries. He argues, rather convincingly, that capitalism did not just start with the advent of European hegemony in the region, and that top-down narratives are insufficient to capture the tremendous diversity of relationships and balances-of-power that existed among imperial actors, local merchants, foreign merchants, religious dignitaries, peasants, Bedouins, etc... This is probably not a suitable book for the casual reader, but as far as scholastic works go, it's high quality.
December 19, 2024
Superb framing of the Palestinian region that is often overlooked in regards to it's Ottoman overheading
November 10, 2008
This is a classic in Palestinian historiography. Doumani's study is essentially a political economy, following the "social lives" of 4 commodities in Jabal Nablus. It attempts to be a "from the bottom" history...but I would have LOVED to have seen a "from the bottom" history that is NOT a political economy. Oh well, such is the nature of history.
Want to Read
September 21, 2009Specifically, read chapter 4.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews