Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class by Keith David Watenbaugh is a monograph that tackles the relationship between the urban middle-class, press and nationalist movement in Syria between the revolution of 1908 and the onset of WW II. He explores modernity and how elites understood its meaning, purpose, and function in a transforming Syria. While his study focused on Aleppo’s urban middle-class nationalist movement, this text draws larger conclusions about the formation of a Syrian nation during the genesis of that movement. He argues that the urban middle-class was already materially engaged with the process of modernity as it pertained to the importation of western goods and material. After 1908, a lack of censorship became a way to transmit ideas through print media to literate audiences. His manuscript posits that there were the strong connections between nationalist aspirations expressed in print which resulted in a realized nationalist movement that eventually resulted in a Syrian nation.

The book is divided into three chronological sections, but also includes two introductory chapters. Chapter one, “the Introduction” offers the methodological framework and theoretical position of the text. The second chapter, “An Eastern Mediterranean City on the Eve of Revolution”, discusses the city of Aleppo within its geographic context as part of a larger network of Eastern Mediterranean cities and claims that like other Eastern Mediterranean cities such as Trieste and Alexandria, Aleppo is uncomfortably placed within a politically bounded nation-state that was not appropriate, particularly during the interwar period. The two-chapter introduction provides both a thorough discussion of the theoretical backdrop and strong foundation for the three preceding sections of the text. The structural organization of the text lends itself to an easy relationship between argument, evidence, and analysis.

In many ways, each of the content sections follows the model of the introduction by using two chapters to thoroughly discuss the sources and important questions that they raise. Section one, “Being Modern in the Time of Revolution”, focuses on the role of print culture and volunteerism within the framework of a shifting identity from 1908 to 1918. It shows how language and journalism styles both reflected and shaped a new modern identity and that print culture helped form the way that urban intellectuals understood themselves within a changing city. His discussion of the ways that the media supported quasi-official and cultural institutions to shape the middle class in Aleppo is particularly enlightening.

The second section of the book, “Being Modern in a Moment of Anxiety”, tackles the development of the urban middle class during the beginning of the mandate period from 1918 to 1924 which also marked the first half of the interwar period. It deals with the anxiety that the middle class felt because of shifting identities that transformed them from Ottomans to budding Syrian nationalists. It was a “moment of anxiety [that] made unprecedented demands on the Eastern Mediterranean middle class” (126). This anxiety was exacerbated by the pressure of foreign troops and the ruling elite. This tension resulted in the middle class’s articulation of anxiety through “modern intellectual, social and cultural tools” (125).

The third section of the book, “Being Modern in the Era of Colonialism”, deals with the development of the urban middle class during the second half of the interwar period from 1925 to 1946. It shows how the French model of colonialism during the mandate period affected the people of Aleppo. The French “hands-on approach” model of empire faced violent opposition in many parts of Syria, but Aleppo remained relatively calm during uprising in places like Druze Mountain and the Great Syrian Revolt of 1926 to 1927. The discussion of Aleppo’s temperate response to French colonialism illustrates that each region faced different challenges and that local particularities dictated how Aleppo’s middle class responded in ways dissimilar to places like Druze Mountain.

The greatest strength of this text is the way that the argument unfolds over the two introductory chapters and three sections. The author took great care to bring organization from a rich body of sources to help disentangle the relationship between modernity and the formation of the middle class during the period after the departure of the Ottoman Empire and the development of the Syrian nation. This text is based on an exhaustive list of print media, particularly newspapers and journals as well as an extensive list of archival sources. Being Modern in the Middle East is well grounded within the historiography on Syria and Lebanon (the Levant) and framed within a larger historiography of modernity and its relationship to the middle class in the age of empire during the transition from an Ottoman province to a nation-state.

Being Modern in the Middle East challenged the dominant model of the nation-state and political history as either relevant or organic ways to understand what happened in Greater Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean during the period of transition. It shows that the interwar period forced the diverse middle class to recast themselves into a national identity as they faced both occupation and upheaval of the existing system. This text signposts a shift in the field that understands the Eastern Mediterranean as a zone of intellectual relationships that were somewhat severed by the mandated structure and the nation states that followed. Another contribution of this text is that it seamlessly illustrates the diversity of Aleppo’s urban middle-class without falling into the pitfall of depicting Aleppo as a city segregated by religion or ethnicity. The discussion of difference illustrates that conflicts or violence that arose came about because of complicated identities that were not limited to religious or ethnic identity but a result of interwar tension that was complicated by the intersection of class identity.

Being Modern in the Middle East is an important text that rests within a shift in understanding the Middle East in more global and regional terms between World War I and World War II. It eloquently illustrates, through a rich body of primary sources, that the middle class of Aleppo found ways to cope with and mourn the way that they understood their intellectual, social and cultural community. Watenbaugh’s important text offers new energy into urban history will positioning itself within existing literature and offering other avenues to explore middle-class Aleppo from 1908 to 1946.