Amazon.com description: Product Description: A practical review for historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and upper-level students of urban studies, this book unravels the mystery surrounding the urban social history of the Middle East from the mid-eighteenth century through the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Through his introduction, Peter Sluglett situates the practice of Middle Eastern social history in the context of social history as a whole. Case studies follow, which offer a synthesis of cutting-edge scholarship with original analysis. The contributing authors address central conceptual and methodological issues, producing a research agenda for future studies on the social history of the Middle East. This cutting-edge edited volume provides a thematic and comparative approach to important and timely issues of urban social history in the Middle East. Peter Sluglett and the contributing authors unravel the urban social history of the Middle East from the mid-eighteenth century through the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Through an introduction that raises questions of conceptual and methodological importance in the field, Sluglett situates Middle Eastern social history in the context of social history as a whole. Case studies follow, which offer a synthesis of contemporary scholarship with original analysis. Contributing authors address central conceptual and methodological issues, constructing a research agenda for future studies on the social history of the Middle East. Sluglett also provides a critical overview of the current literature, which is crucial to the discussions that follow. The case studies highlight transitions over time, exploring such areas as population changes and urban growth due to changes in urban wages, the changing roles of minority communities (Christians, Jews, Europeans), and women's changing social and economic roles reflected in marriage and divorce. Many of the discussions also examine economic and political relations, such as economic relations between cities and the hinterlands, state versus local political functions, and the buying up of crop futures in the organization of labor and production. The text concludes with a review of popular protest movements, including the anticolonial struggle, and considers the social and political effects of the European economic penetration in the Middle East. The Social History of Cities in the Middle East presents a practical review for historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and upper-level students of urban studies.