How Joseph Massad can take this hyper-specific, dissertation-style topic -- the formation of national identity in Jordan, one of those countries most people almost never think about, and when they do think about it, have a vague image of a relatively benign Middle Eastern buffer state that sometimes helps out refugees and has a hottie for a queen -- and turn it into something remarkable, well that's beyond my level of skill.
Needless to say, I'm impressed. Because Jordan is a near-perfect example of an arbitrary, accidental state in which identity slowly coalesced. Unlike Africa, in which lines were drawn without regard to the dizzying diversities of culture and tribe, the French and Brits chopped up the old Ottoman Empire into different sections, each of which was mostly occupied by Arabs, Jordan being one of these chunks, one without much of an independent history. An identity formed under the shadow of the Brits, via the legal system, the military, the monarchy, and the simultaneous adaptation of and large-scale diminution of Bedouin identity, and in contrast to the adjoining French, Zionist, and Saudi projects. A remarkable, close-scale study, told with narrative skill and scholarly rigor.