Includes index

Timeline -- Introduction: 9/11 in historical perspective -- The advent of the modern age -- From late antiquity to the dawn of a new age -- Gunpowder empires -- The Middle East and the modern world system -- The classical Near Eastern question -- Documents -- Suggested readings -- The question of modernity -- Defensive developmentalism -- Imperialism -- Wasif Jawhariyyeh and the great nineteenth-century transformation -- The life of the mind -- Secularism and modernity -- Constitutionalism -- Documents -- Suggested readings -- World War I and the Middle East state system -- State-building by decree -- State-building by revolution and conquest-- The introduction and spread of nationalism -- The origins of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute -- Documents -- Suggested readings -- The contemporary era -- State and society in the contemporary -- Middle East: an old/new relationship -- Oil -- The United States and the Middle East-- Israel, the Arab states, and the Palestinians -- The Iranian revolution -- Islamic political movements -- Documents -- Suggested readings -- Conclusion: the Middle East in the age of globalization -- Biographical sketches -- Glossary