Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East

Reviews / Votes

Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East studies borders and bordering as dialectic processes, in which policy and the reality of border were mutually constitutive. Empirically rich and meticulously researched, the book masterfully weaves together the macro-level of international relations, with the micro-level of borderlanders' lives. Inhabiting the pages of the book are nomads, rebels, smugglers, refugees, trains, cattle, locust and germs, whose mobility were affected by and helped shape the reality of the tri-border zone laying between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. -- Liat Kozma, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Theoretically astute and empirically meticulous, Jordi Tejel's Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East deftly navigates between high diplomacy and everyday issues on the border. Tejel exposes a region long left out of conventional histories by centering the dynamism of borderlanders themselves, including border-crossing Sufi healers, silk-stocking smugglers and polyglot merchants who used Ottoman currency even after the empire's demise. -- Samuel Dolbee, Vanderbilt University Jordi Tejel's Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East offers a fresh perspective on the region's state and boundary formation process during that critical juncture of the first two decades after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. -- Anuradha Jangra, Jawaharlal Nehru University * Kurdish Studies Journal * There is little doubt that Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East is a major scholarly achievement. Supported by extensive original research conducted in British, French, German, and Turkish archives, Tejel presents a vivid account of the Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi borderlands at a critical historical juncture. -- Djene Rhys Bajalan, Missouri State University * Bustan: The Middle East Book Review *