Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T12:36:03.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Great Depression (1873-1896) and the Rise of Syrian Arab Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

L. Schatkowski Schilcher*
Affiliation:
Villanova University, Department of History

Extract

Can we see any evidence that the so-called “Great Depression” (c. 1873-1896) had an impact on Syria? This paper investigates the problem by focusing on the Hawran, an important grain-producing area south of the Ottoman provincial capital, Damascus. The Hawran is an open plain, sloping upwards towards the east and nearly enclosed by protecting ravines, valleys and highlands. To the north lies the valley of Wadi ‘Ajam and the well-settled and ostensibly well-controlled Damascene oasis (al-Ghuta). To the west stands Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Shaikh), while the slopes and valleys of the Anti-Lebanese mountains (Jawlan, ‘Ajlun), the Lake of Tiberias (Bahr al-Tabariyya) and the tributaries of the Jordan River and its gorge (Baisan, al-Ghur) present further barriers. To the northeast and east lies a volcanic badlands region of heavily eroded gullies and redoubts (al-Safa, al-Laja') and the hills, known then as Jabal Hawran, now as Jabal al-Druz or Jabal al-'Arab, together with a lava rock field to their east (al-Harra) form a buffer between the plain and the Syrian steppe. To the south the Hawran opens out into the Trans-Jordanian plateau and the Syrian steppe, though gullies and ravines also provide some protection here.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu-Husayn, Abdul-Rahim. 1985. Provincial Leaderships in Syria, 1575-1650. Beirut: American University of Beirut.Google Scholar
Anon, . 1981. Ta'rikh hawadith al-Sham wa-Lubnan aw Tarikh Mikha'il al-Dimashqi 1192-1257 AH, 1782-1841 AD. (edited by Sbanu, Ahmad), Beirut.Google Scholar
Barbir, Karl. 1980. Ottoman Rule in Damascus, 1708-1758. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawn, Ernest C. 1973. From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Hamdan, M(uhammad) R(afiq). 1979. Die Versorgung der Bevölkerung in Jordanien mit Grundnahrungsmitteln, Energie und Energie liefernden Närhstoffen. Bonn.Google Scholar
Himadeh, S.B. (ed.). 1936. The Economic Organization of Syria. Beirut: American Press.Google Scholar
Houráni, Albert H. 1968. “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” in Polk, W. R. and Chambers, R. L. (eds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East. Chicago, pp. 4165.Google Scholar
Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter and Abdulfattah, Kamal. 1977. Historical Geography of Palestine, Trans Jordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlangen: Palm & Enke.Google Scholar
Kalla, Mohammed Sa'id. 1969. The Role of Foreign Trade in the Economic Development of Syria 1831-1914. Ph. D. Dissertation, American University, Washington.Google Scholar
Kazziha, Walid. 1972. The Social History of Southern Syria (Trans-Jordan) in the Nineteenth and Early 20th Century. Beirut: Arab University Press.Google Scholar
Khoury, Philip S. 1983. Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khoury, Philip. 1987. Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Norman N. 1966. “The Frontier of Settlement in Syria,” in Issawi, Charles (ed.), The Economic History of the Middle East 1800-1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 259268.Google Scholar
Lewis, Norman N. 1987. Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800-1980. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacAdam, Henry. 1986. Studies in the History of the Roman Province of Arabia. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
McDowell, David. 1972. The Draze Revolt of 1925-27 and Its Background in the Late Ottoman Period. Dissertation, Oxford.Google Scholar
Miller, Doris S. 1984. The Lava Lands of Syria: Regional Urbanism in the Roman Empire. Diss., New York University.Google Scholar
Naif, Alixa. 1972. A Social History of Zahle, the Principal Market Town in nineteenth-century Lebanon. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Owen, Roger. 1981/1987. The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-19Ц, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket. 1984. “The Ottoman Empire in the Great Depression of 1873-1896,Journal of Economic History, 44, pp. 107118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket. 1987. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820–1913. Trade, Investment and Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Qassimi, Muhammad Sa'id al-. 1960. Qamus al-sina'at al-shamiyya. (edited by al-Qasimi, Zafir), Paris.Google Scholar
Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. 1966. The Province of Damascus, 1723-1783. Beirut: Khayats.Google Scholar
Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. 1989. “Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und politische Macht in Syrien 1918-1925,” in Schilcher, L. S. and Scharf, C. (eds.), Der Nahe Osten in der Zwischenkriegszeit 1919-1939. Die Interdependenz von Politik, Wirtschaft und Ideologie. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, pp. 440482.Google Scholar
Roded, Ruth. 1984. Tradition and Change in Syria during the Last Decades of Ottoman Rule: The Urban Elite of Damascus, Aleppo, Horns, and Hama, 1876-1918. Dissertation, University of Denver.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1975. “Ein Modellfall indirekter wirtschaftlicher Durchdringung: Das Beispiel Syrien,” in Mommsen, Wolfgang (ed.), Imperialism im Nahen und Mittleren Osten, Geschichte und Gesellschaft. 1/4, pp. 482505.Google Scholar
Schilcher, Linda Schatkowski. 1981. “The Hauran Conflicts of the 1860s: A Chapter in the Rural History of Modern Syria,International Journal of Middle East Studies, 13, pp. 159179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1982. “Food and Agriculture in Syria and Lebanon during the Second World War,” paper presented to the Eighth International Economic Historians Congress, Budapest.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1985. Families in Politics. Damascene Factions and Estates of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1988. “The Lore and Reality of Middle Eastern Patriarchy,Die Welt des Islams, 28, pp. 496512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1989. “Die Weizenwirtschaft des Nahen Ostens in der Zwischenkriegszeit: Der Einfluss der Ökonomie auf die Politik am Beispiel Syriens,” in Schilcher, L. S. and Scharf, C. (eds.), Der Nahe Osten in der Zwischenkriegszeit 1919–1939. Die Interdependenz von Politik, Wirtschaft und Ideologie, Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, pp. 241259.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1991a. “The grain economy of late Ottoman Syria and the issue of large-scale commercialization,” in Tabak, Faruk and Keyder, Çağlar (eds.), Large Scale Commercial Agriculture in the Ottoman Empire. Binghamton: SUNY Press, pp. 173195.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. 1991b. “Violent Confrontations in Rural Syria of the 1880s-1890s,” in Kazemi, F. and Waterbury, J. (eds.), Peasant Politics and Violence in the Recent History of the Middle East. Gainseville: University Presses of Florida.Google Scholar
Schilcher, L. S. (forthcoming). “The Famine in Syria 1916-1918,” in Spagnola, John (ed.), Historical Perspectives on the Middle East.Google Scholar
Seikaly, May. 1989. “Die arabische Gemeinde von Haifa 1918-1936,” in Schilcher, L. S. and Scharf, С. (eds.), Der Nahe Osten in der Zwischenkriegszeit 1919–1939. Die Interdependenz von Politik, Wirtschaft und Ideologie. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, pp. 317340.Google Scholar
Shimizu, Hiroshi. 1986. Anglo-Japanese Trade Rivalry in the Middle East in the Inter-War Period. London: Ithaca.Google Scholar
Wetzstein, Johann Gottfried. 1860. Der Hauran und die Trachonen. Reisebericht über Hauran und die Trachonen. Berlin: Verlag Dietrich Reimer.Google Scholar
Wilson, Mary C. 1987. King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wirth, Eugen. 1971. Syrien. Ein geographische Landeskunde. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Wirth, Eugen. 1963. “Die Rolle tscherkessischer ‘Wehrbauern’ bei der Wiederbesiedlung von Steppen und Odland im Osmanischen Reich,Bustan, 4, pp. 1619.Google Scholar