Ussama Makdisi
Biographic Data
| ID | 255844 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ussama Makdisi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ussama |
| FAMILY NAME | Makdisi |
| SIGNATURE | MAKDISI U |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rice University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 92 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Beyond the Palestine Exception
The heart of the Palestine exception is not simply—or necessarily—the crude denial of Palestinian humanity. It is also the constant overriding and overwriting of Palestinian history by a different and deeply Eurocentric history of age-old antisemitism that is intimately familiar to Western academia and society. This act of substitution is essential to understand how actual Palestinian obliteration in the Gaza genocide has been obscured and deflec…
Age of Coexistence
";Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East.";-Robert Fisk, The Independent Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi's Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious …
Artillery of Heaven
The complex relationship between America and the Arab world goes back further than most people realize. In Artillery of Heaven , Ussama Makdisi presents a foundational American encounter with the Arab world that occurred in the nineteenth century, shortly after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries in the Middle East. He tells the dramatic tale of the conversion and death of As'ad Shidyaq, the earliest Arab convert to American…
The Limits of Anti-Secularist Critique
Diminished Sovereignty and the Impossibility of “Civil War” in the Modern Middle East
The famous historian of the U.S. South C. Vann Woodward once described the “irony” of southern history. By irony Woodward meant that southern U.S. states were subjected to a most un-American history of defeat and occupation after the U.S. Civil War. He noted that the southern experience was similar to that “shared by almost all the peoples of Europe and Asia.”1 Indeed, many, if not most, wars in the modern non-West, from the Taiping Rebellion of …
After Said
Journal Article After Said: The Limits and Possibilities of a Critical Scholarship of U.S.-Arab Relations Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Diplomatic History, Volume 38, Issue 3, June 2014, Pages 657–684, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dht104 Published: 28 June 2013
The Great Illusion
In the Middle East, as in many other parts of the world, disappointment with the United States is based on an intense and obvious gap that separates noble American rhetoric and far more callous policies. The language of freedom, democracy, and human rights have long been a hallmark of American foreign policy; so too has been the cynicism of U.S. presidents and policymakers during the Cold War and today. In a remarkably lucid and readable book, Er…
Tolerance and Conversion in the Ottoman Empire
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Pensée 4
The notion of sectarianism can be useful in understanding the Middle East. As in India and Ireland, sectarian (or communal) identities have been crucial to the elaboration of modern politics in many parts of the region. Unlike India and Ireland today, however, the Middle East is subject to American domination. The result is that the study of Middle Eastern sectarianism is extraordinarily politicized. As scholars struggle to study sectarianism in …
Religious Identities and Violence
Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa
Explores the relation between histories of violence and their contemporary commemoration
Ottoman Orientalism
Journal Article Ottoman Orientalism Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi associate professor in the Department of History Rice University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 107, Issue 3, June 2002, Pages 768–796, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/107.3.768 Published: 01 June 2002
Ottoman Orientalism
"Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World
Journal Article "Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World: An Interpretation of a Brief History Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Associate Professor Department of History, Rice [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 538–557, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092172 Published: 01 September 2002
After 1860
The events of 1860 constitute a turning point in the modern history of Lebanon. In the space of a few weeks between the end of May and the middle of June, Maronite and Druze communities clashed in Mount Lebanon in a struggle to see which community would control, and define, a stretch of mountainous territory at the center of complicated Eastern Question politics. 1 The Druzes carried the day. Every major Maronite town within reach of the Druzes w…
The Culture of SectarianismCommunity, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon
Focusing on Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi shows how sectarianism was a manifestation of modernity that transcended the physical boundaries of a particular country. His study challenges those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic response to westernization or simply as a product of social and economic inequities among religious groups. The religious violence of the nineteenth century, which culminated in sectarian mobilizations and ma…
Culture of Sectarianism
Focusing on Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi shows how sectarianism was a manifestation of modernity that transcended the physical boundaries of a particular country. His study challenges those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic response to westernization or simply as a product of social and economic inequities among religious groups. The religious violence of the nineteenth century, which culminated in sectarian mobilizations and ma…
Ethnicity in the Middle East
Ethnicity in the Middle East
Corrupting the Sublime Sultanate
Sectarianism is an orphan of history.This paper was originally presented to the Davis Seminar at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, in November 1998. I am grateful to the participants in the seminar as well as my colleagues at Rice University, whose criticisms helped make this essay more coherent. That, at least, seems to be the consensus of the scholarship on Middle Eastern religious violence. Unlike recent…
Rediscovering Palestine
Citizenship and Peace
Citizenship and Peace
Reclaiming the Land of the Bible
Journal Article Reclaiming the Land of the Bible: Missionaries, Secularism, and Evangelical Modernity Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 102, Issue 3, June 1997, Pages 680–713, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/102.3.680 Published: 01 June 1997
Reconstructing the Nation-State
Ussama Makdisi, Reconstructing the Nation-State: The Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon, Middle East Report, No. 200, Minorities in the Middle East: Power and the Politics of Difference (Jul. - Sep., 1996), pp. 23-26+30
Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa
Explores the relation between histories of violence and their contemporary commemoration
Pensée 4
The notion of sectarianism can be useful in understanding the Middle East. As in India and Ireland, sectarian (or communal) identities have been crucial to the elaboration of modern politics in many parts of the region. Unlike India and Ireland today, however, the Middle East is subject to American domination. The result is that the study of Middle Eastern sectarianism is extraordinarily politicized. As scholars struggle to study sectarianism in …
"Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World
Journal Article "Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World: An Interpretation of a Brief History Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Associate Professor Department of History, Rice [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 538–557, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092172 Published: 01 September 2002
After 1860
The events of 1860 constitute a turning point in the modern history of Lebanon. In the space of a few weeks between the end of May and the middle of June, Maronite and Druze communities clashed in Mount Lebanon in a struggle to see which community would control, and define, a stretch of mountainous territory at the center of complicated Eastern Question politics. 1 The Druzes carried the day. Every major Maronite town within reach of the Druzes w…
Tolerance and Conversion in the Ottoman Empire
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Corrupting the Sublime Sultanate
Sectarianism is an orphan of history.This paper was originally presented to the Davis Seminar at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, in November 1998. I am grateful to the participants in the seminar as well as my colleagues at Rice University, whose criticisms helped make this essay more coherent. That, at least, seems to be the consensus of the scholarship on Middle Eastern religious violence. Unlike recent…
Artillery of Heaven
The complex relationship between America and the Arab world goes back further than most people realize. In Artillery of Heaven , Ussama Makdisi presents a foundational American encounter with the Arab world that occurred in the nineteenth century, shortly after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries in the Middle East. He tells the dramatic tale of the conversion and death of As'ad Shidyaq, the earliest Arab convert to American…
Beyond the Palestine Exception
The heart of the Palestine exception is not simply—or necessarily—the crude denial of Palestinian humanity. It is also the constant overriding and overwriting of Palestinian history by a different and deeply Eurocentric history of age-old antisemitism that is intimately familiar to Western academia and society. This act of substitution is essential to understand how actual Palestinian obliteration in the Gaza genocide has been obscured and deflec…
The Limits of Anti-Secularist Critique
Religious Identities and Violence
Reconstructing the Nation-State
Ussama Makdisi, Reconstructing the Nation-State: The Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon, Middle East Report, No. 200, Minorities in the Middle East: Power and the Politics of Difference (Jul. - Sep., 1996), pp. 23-26+30
Reclaiming the Land of the Bible
Journal Article Reclaiming the Land of the Bible: Missionaries, Secularism, and Evangelical Modernity Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 102, Issue 3, June 1997, Pages 680–713, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/102.3.680 Published: 01 June 1997
Rediscovering Palestine
Citizenship and Peace
Citizenship and Peace
The Culture of SectarianismCommunity, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon
Focusing on Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi shows how sectarianism was a manifestation of modernity that transcended the physical boundaries of a particular country. His study challenges those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic response to westernization or simply as a product of social and economic inequities among religious groups. The religious violence of the nineteenth century, which culminated in sectarian mobilizations and ma…
Culture of Sectarianism
Focusing on Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi shows how sectarianism was a manifestation of modernity that transcended the physical boundaries of a particular country. His study challenges those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic response to westernization or simply as a product of social and economic inequities among religious groups. The religious violence of the nineteenth century, which culminated in sectarian mobilizations and ma…
Ethnicity in the Middle East
Ethnicity in the Middle East
Corrupting the Sublime Sultanate
Sectarianism is an orphan of history.This paper was originally presented to the Davis Seminar at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, in November 1998. I am grateful to the participants in the seminar as well as my colleagues at Rice University, whose criticisms helped make this essay more coherent. That, at least, seems to be the consensus of the scholarship on Middle Eastern religious violence. Unlike recent…
Ottoman Orientalism
Journal Article Ottoman Orientalism Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi associate professor in the Department of History Rice University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 107, Issue 3, June 2002, Pages 768–796, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/107.3.768 Published: 01 June 2002
Ottoman Orientalism
"Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World
Journal Article "Anti-Americanism" in the Arab World: An Interpretation of a Brief History Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Associate Professor Department of History, Rice [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 89, Issue 2, September 2002, Pages 538–557, https://doi.org/10.2307/3092172 Published: 01 September 2002
After 1860
The events of 1860 constitute a turning point in the modern history of Lebanon. In the space of a few weeks between the end of May and the middle of June, Maronite and Druze communities clashed in Mount Lebanon in a struggle to see which community would control, and define, a stretch of mountainous territory at the center of complicated Eastern Question politics. 1 The Druzes carried the day. Every major Maronite town within reach of the Druzes w…
Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa
Explores the relation between histories of violence and their contemporary commemoration
Religious Identities and Violence
Pensée 4
The notion of sectarianism can be useful in understanding the Middle East. As in India and Ireland, sectarian (or communal) identities have been crucial to the elaboration of modern politics in many parts of the region. Unlike India and Ireland today, however, the Middle East is subject to American domination. The result is that the study of Middle Eastern sectarianism is extraordinarily politicized. As scholars struggle to study sectarianism in …
The Great Illusion
In the Middle East, as in many other parts of the world, disappointment with the United States is based on an intense and obvious gap that separates noble American rhetoric and far more callous policies. The language of freedom, democracy, and human rights have long been a hallmark of American foreign policy; so too has been the cynicism of U.S. presidents and policymakers during the Cold War and today. In a remarkably lucid and readable book, Er…
Tolerance and Conversion in the Ottoman Empire
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
After Said
Journal Article After Said: The Limits and Possibilities of a Critical Scholarship of U.S.-Arab Relations Get access Ussama Makdisi Ussama Makdisi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Diplomatic History, Volume 38, Issue 3, June 2014, Pages 657–684, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dht104 Published: 28 June 2013
Diminished Sovereignty and the Impossibility of “Civil War” in the Modern Middle East
The famous historian of the U.S. South C. Vann Woodward once described the “irony” of southern history. By irony Woodward meant that southern U.S. states were subjected to a most un-American history of defeat and occupation after the U.S. Civil War. He noted that the southern experience was similar to that “shared by almost all the peoples of Europe and Asia.”1 Indeed, many, if not most, wars in the modern non-West, from the Taiping Rebellion of …
The Limits of Anti-Secularist Critique
Artillery of Heaven
The complex relationship between America and the Arab world goes back further than most people realize. In Artillery of Heaven , Ussama Makdisi presents a foundational American encounter with the Arab world that occurred in the nineteenth century, shortly after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries in the Middle East. He tells the dramatic tale of the conversion and death of As'ad Shidyaq, the earliest Arab convert to American…
Age of Coexistence
";Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East.";-Robert Fisk, The Independent Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi's Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious …
Beyond the Palestine Exception
The heart of the Palestine exception is not simply—or necessarily—the crude denial of Palestinian humanity. It is also the constant overriding and overwriting of Palestinian history by a different and deeply Eurocentric history of age-old antisemitism that is intimately familiar to Western academia and society. This act of substitution is essential to understand how actual Palestinian obliteration in the Gaza genocide has been obscured and deflec…
Political science (21 works) · History (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Ancient history (15 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (14 works) · Politics (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Islamic Studies and History (9 works) · Law (9 works)