If the history of the Middle East in the 20th century is a history of fundamental social changes and dislocations, then surely one important part of that story is the transformation that took place in the agrarian sector of many Middle Eastern societies. The politics of landownership and the projects of land reform in the 20th century were indeed among the most ambitious of the statist projects undertaken during what we can now look back on as the “age of modernization.” Like so many large-scale projects of social engineering, land reform in the Middle East captured the optimism and idealism of modernization while producing some of its most brutal and unforeseen consequences.