{"product_id":"the-emergence-of-minorities-in-the-middle-east-the-politics-of-community-in-french-mandate-syria-by-benjamin-thomas-white","title":"The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria by Benjamin Thomas White","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy, in the years around 1920, did the concept of 'minority' suddenly become prominent in public affairs worldwide? Within a decade after World War One, the term became fundamental to public understandings of national and international politics, law, and society: minorities (and majorities too) were taken to be an objective reality, both in the present and the past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book uses a study of Syria under the French mandate to show what historical developments led people to start describing themselves and others as 'minorities'. Despite French attempts to create territorial, political, and legal divisions, the mandate period saw the consolidation of the nation-state form in Syria. There was a trend towards a coherent national territory with fixed borders and uniform state authority within them, while the struggle to control the state was played out in the language of nationalism - developments in the post-Ottoman Levant that closely paralleled events in Europe at the same time, following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist empires. Through close attention to what changed in French mandate Syria, and what those changes meant, the book argues for a careful reappraisal of a term too often used as an objective description of reality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBenjamin Thomas White is a Senior Lecturer of History at the University of Glasgow. He is author of \u003ci\u003eThe Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria\u003c\/i\u003e (Edinburgh University Press). He has published the following chapters: \"Animals, people and places in displacement.\" in: Adey, P., Bowstead, J., Brickell, K., Desai, V., Dolton, M., Pinkerton, A. and Siddiqi, A. (eds.) \u003ci\u003eThe Handbook of Displacement\u003c\/i\u003e (Palgrave Macmillan) and \"Protection or isolation? Humanitarian evacuees in Australian quarantine stations,\" in: Scott-Smith, T. and Breeze, M. E. (eds.) \u003ci\u003eStructures of Protection: Rethinking Refugee Shelter\u003c\/i\u003e (Berghahn Books). He has also been published in the \u003ci\u003eJournal of Global History\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHumanity, Fiction and Film for Scholars of France: A Cultural Bulletin\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eStudies in Ethnicity and Nationalism\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBritish Journal of Middle East Studies\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMiddle Eastern Studies\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eInternational Journal of Middle East Studies\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Edinburgh University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52797846847773,"sku":"9780748685400","price":39.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0511\/5897\/files\/Screenshot2026-08-21at1.22.32pm.png?v=1787332972","url":"https:\/\/www.middleeastbooks.com\/products\/the-emergence-of-minorities-in-the-middle-east-the-politics-of-community-in-french-mandate-syria-by-benjamin-thomas-white","provider":"Middle East Books and More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}