Brendan’s Reviews > The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years > Status Update
Brendan
is on page 290 of 448
“The rise of mercantilism in the producer-oriented West helped European trading companies, and the states that protected and encouraged them, to achieve a level of commercial organization and a concentration of economic energies unknown and unparalleled in the East, where—as a matter of fact more than of theory—‘market forces’ operated without serious restrictions. The Western trading corporation, with the
— May 04, 2026 09:21PM
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Brendan
is on page 322 of 448
“When the [religion-defined] Ottoman millet system was still functioning in accordance with its own inner logic, ethnic solidarities did not define basic identity nor did they determine ultimate allegiance. The people whom we call, and who now call themselves, Turks and Arabs, did not describe themselves by those names until fairly modern times. [ ] It was only in modern times, under the impact of European ideas
— May 06, 2026 08:37PM
Brendan
is on page 184 of 448
“Many stories are told in the Arabic chronicles of how, when the Arabs came as conquerors, they tried to take over the government but couldn’t, because nobody could read the accounts except the accountants, and no one could deal with correspondence except the clerks in the office. And so, the stories relate, perforce the Arabs had to give way, and though they were the unchallenged political and military masters
— Apr 13, 2026 08:19PM
Brendan
is on page 139 of 448
“The titulature of sovereignty in Islam, unlike that of Christendom, does not normally make use of territorial or ethnic designations. There are no equivalents to the kings of England, of France, of Spain, or other realms in the West. During the great wars between the sultan of Turkey and the shah of Iran in the 16th century, these were titles which each applied to the other to belittle him, and never to himself.
— Apr 11, 2026 01:28PM
Brendan
is on page 114 of 448
“The resulting struggle [between the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Iranians] was for both the leadership of Islam and the control of the Middle East. It was waged not only on the battlefield but also in a war of propaganda between the Sunni and Shi’a faiths of which the Ottoman sultan and the Safavid shah were respectively the champions. The struggle ended with a limited victory for the Ottomans, who were able
— Apr 08, 2026 09:07PM
Brendan
is on page 67 of 448
“Wherever Shi’ites are to be found, on [the date of the Battle of Karbala] they commemorate the martyrdom of the Prophet’s family, the penitence of those who failed to save them, and the wickedness of [the Umayyad soldiers] who killed them, in religious rituals inspired by the potent themes of sacrifice, guilt, and expiation. The doctrinal differences between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims are of minor importance,
— Apr 06, 2026 09:56PM
Brendan
is on page 38 of 448
On the Roman/Persian rivalry that preceded (and enabled) Islamic conquest of the Middle East:
“The Roman, and then Byzantine interest, was to establish and preserve external trade links with China and India, thus bypassing the Persian-dominated center. The Persian Empire tried to use its position athwart the transit routes to control Byzantine trade, so as to exploit it in times of peace or stop it in times of war.
— Apr 06, 2026 04:10PM
“The Roman, and then Byzantine interest, was to establish and preserve external trade links with China and India, thus bypassing the Persian-dominated center. The Persian Empire tried to use its position athwart the transit routes to control Byzantine trade, so as to exploit it in times of peace or stop it in times of war.
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May 04, 2026 09:23PM
the help of its business-minded government, represented an entirely new force. Thanks to this growing disparity of economic strength and will, Western merchants, later manufacturers, and eventually governments, were able to establish an almost total control of Middle Eastern markets and ultimately even of major middle eastern manufactures.”
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Hard not to see the analogies between the relative situations of the Middle East and Europe in the 18th/19th centuries and those of America and China today. Contra free market ideologues, Western power was built through ‘industrial policy’ — more ad hoc than planned — and eventual capture of the consumerist markets of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman leadership was weak, corrupt, and heavily privatized (eg through contracted private tax farmers), and therefore totally unable to hold organized Western economic power at bay. I fear that we are in the situation of the Ottomans, while the Chinese are smartly cornering industrial markets everywhere….
(Incidentally, this entire chapter really shows one of the fundamental problems with the field of economics: most economists do not study much history. Enamored of their equations and political ideologies, they overlook the actual evidence of the human past. Nobody who studies economic history could become a doctrinaire free marketeer, just as they could not become a diehard communist! Yet the demonstrably wrong attachment to the ‘free market’ continues to hold a death grip, albeit one that is weakening as the hand itself rots away…)
