By Jacob Norris
Histories of Palestine within the pre-1948 interval frequently think the emergent Arab-Zionist clash to be the significant axis round which all switch revolves. In Land of Progress Jacob Norris indicates another ancient vocabulary is required to increase our figuring out of the region's contemporary previous. specifically, for the architects of empire and their brokers at the flooring, Palestine used to be conceived basically inside a developmental discourse that pervaded colonial perform from the flip of the 20 th century onwards. a miles cry from the post-World struggle II specialize in elevating residing criteria, colonial improvement within the early 20th century was once extra drawn to infrastructure and the exploitation of average assets.
Land of Progress charts this technique at paintings throughout either the Ottoman and British sessions in Palestine, targeting of the main salient yet understudied websites of improvement anyplace within the colonial international: the lifeless Sea and Haifa. Weaving the stories of neighborhood contributors right into a wider narrative of imperial growth and anti-colonial resistance, Norris demonstrates the frequent pleasure Palestine generated between those that observed themselves on the forefront of growth and modernisation, whether or not they have been Ottoman or British, Arab or Jewish. in contrast backdrop, Norris strains the slow erosion throughout the mandate interval of the combined variety of improvement that had prevailed less than the Ottoman Empire, because the new British regime seen Zionism because the sole motor of modernisation. hence, the book's latter levels relate the level to which colonial improvement grew to become a significant factor of contestation within the fight for Palestine that spread out within the Thirties and 40s.
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Additional resources for Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948
Example text
But the role played by European financiers and foreign consuls in the late Ottoman period should not be overstated. This was also a region in which the Ottoman state was increasingly asserting itself through the implementation of infrastructural development. Furthermore, a range of local actors were simultaneously perceiving newfound opportunity in such projects, both at an economic and a political level. 7 The first section of this chapter consequently examines the great variety of people involved in colonial development in the Eastern Mediterranean before 1914, considering not only the material attractions of this process but also its philosophical appeal for a generation of intellectuals and public figures in Ottoman Syria.
18 Land of Progress modernization projects that were carried out under the umbrella of Ottoman imperial control. Within this picture, Britain was increasingly replacing France as the dominant foreign commercial power in the years leading up to the First World War. 66 All of these activities bear the hallmarks of colonial development, and, with this in mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to encase the period of British colonial development in Palestine purely within the years 1917–48. TOWA R D S A M U LT I - C E N T R E D VIEW OF DEVELOPMENT A final but no less important group examined here for the role they played in colonial development are the locally based actors who sought to profit from the activities of an interventionist colonial state.
3 As described in M. A. Novomeysky, Given to Salt: The Struggle for the Dead Sea Concession (London: Max Parrish, 1958), 281. 4 See map of harbour area from 1934 in HCA 109499. 5 HCA 2695, Perowne’s broadcast. 6 Cem Emrence, Remapping the Ottoman Middle East: Modernity, Imperial Bureaucracy and the Islamic State (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 4–5. 28 Land of Progress Emrence’s analysis draws our attention to the important differences that often separated the Palestinian littoral from its interior, highland areas (today’s West Bank), but it is contended here that no easy divisions can be made in this rapidly changing local economy.