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136 Reviews
editors cam e from foreign missionary schools, theimpact of theWest on these journals
goes largely unexamined. There
is
little comparison with British
and
American periodicals,
although
we are
told that editors borrowed from them.
The
West
is
largely identified with
the
suffrage movement, despite
the
fact that Western wom en's jou rna ls often focused
on the
same
issues
as did
those
in
Egypt: domestic science, girls' education, h ealth,
and
enhanced mother-
hood. More comp arisonn ot only with Western journa ls but also with those of countries
suchas Japan which were also trying tocomb ine reforms without W esternization wou ld
make Baron's argument stronger. If these journals were unusual,as shesuggests, thesecom-
parisons would confirm their originality.
Another consideration isthe qualityof thewritinginthe journ als.The argument that these
journalshad an impact might have been more convincing had Baron dealt with theskillof
the journalists in making their points.Theideas are considered collectively, sothat thereis
not much senseofwomen's individual argumentsorabilities.Theperiodicals, then,areseen
as historical testimonies to an era but of no particular lasting literary heritage. Thismay not
reflect
the
author's final judgm ent,
but the
quality
of the
periodicals
is
left open
to
question.
These qualifications aside, Baron hasgiven us a well-documented and very readable book.
The notes areextensive, butthere is nobibliography. A bibliography would have been help-
ful,
particularly one that contained alisting of thetitles of theperiodicals and their datesof
publication toillustrate their rangeandfragility ofpublication. This book willbe animportant
addition to Middle Eastern history collections and to international women's history, for it
documents women's participation in an era generally overlooked. Although the era 1870
1920
is
often seen
in the
West
in
terms
of the
suffrage mov emen t,
TheWom en s Awakening in
Egypt reminds
us
that
the
international women's movement
for
educational
and
domestic
re-
form
was far
broader. Further, Baron reminds
us
that Egyptian women took
an
active role
early
in the
process
of
Middle Eastern change.
SCHIRIN
H.
FATHI,Jordan An Invented Nation? Tribe-State Dynamics
and the
Formation
of
National Identity,
Politik, Wirtschaft
und
Gesellschaft
des
Vorderen Orients (Ham burg:
Deutsches Orient-Institut, 1994).Pp. 296.
REVIEWED
BY
MICHAEL
R.
FISCHBACH,
Department of History Randolph-Macon College
Ashland,Va.
The dramatic events
in
Jordan within
the
past
ten
yearseconomic problems, disengage-
ment from
the
West Bank,
the 1989
riots, democratization,
the
Gulf
War and
peace with
Israelhave prompted Jordanians and outside observers alike to probe into thenatureof
Jordanian society, politics, and national identity as the country moves intoa new era. Jor
dan An Invented Nation? Tribe-State Dynamics and the Formation of National Identity
stems from such probing. Itexamines the sociopolitical rootsof Jordan's political structure,
although notalw ays effectively.
The bookis the doctoral dissertation Fathi presented to theU niversity of Hamburg. This
in fact constitutes its major weakness:it was not reworked intoamonograph. Forinstance,
it contains the long sections defining terminology andoutlining so cial-science literatureon
tribal structures
and
governance that characterize
a
dissertation. These should have been
dropped altogether to allow a more specific focus onJordan.Nor do the chapters always
seem directly connectedto oneanother. A gain,anarrower focus onperhaps justone of sev-
eral main topics theauthor explores w ould haveled to a stronger work. There also is no in-
dex. These
are
typical
and
excusable features
in a
d issertation,
but
they should
be
addressed
when producing amonograph.
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vi ws 137
A political scientist, Fathi focuses on three main issues in the book: tribes and tribal
structures and how these have changed in Jordan, the relationship between the state and
tribes in Jordan, and the formation of identity in Jordan. To a lesser extent, she also discusses
democratization. The bulk of her discussion deals with the first of these issues. She states
that her goal is to challen ge the conv entional w isdom that Jordan's tribal popu lation is the
sole stable backb one of the regim e (p. 9). Fathi also aims to show that it was in fact the
regime that molded the tribes to fit its needs. To accomplish this, she applies elite theory to
examine the state and tribes, and the latter's changing roles over the course of modern Jor-
danian history.
Unfortunately, Fathi's focus on state and tribe suffers from an imbalance between back-
ground and analysis. Long sections on tribal structure and the socioeconomic factors leading
to changes in tribal structure, on the one hand, and on the establishment and consolidation
of the state, on the other, are not tied together well with detailed discussions which would
accom plish p recisely what Fathi seeks: namely, to discuss how tribe and state interact in order
to understand the tribes' role in Jordan's political structure. For this reason the work itself
does not quite deliver on its title: is Jordan an inv ente d nation, and what role do the state
and the tribes play in this invention?
Fathi's discussion of identity is structured better and therefore plunges quickly into the
heart of the matter. She discusses the question of the degree to which Jordanians have for-
mulated a national identity to augment their tribal identity. In this regard, she not only relies
on her earlier passages on changing tribal structures but injects the all-important question
of the Palestinians and Palestinian identity into her discussion (her dissertation was written
prior to the Israel-PLO accords). It is also in this section that she discusses the regime's
attempts to use democratization as the basis for the emergence of new national identities.
She concludes by asking rhetorically whether the political structure emerging from democ-
ratization is not in fact merely a new face on a politica l structure dee ply rooted in tradi-
tionalism (p. 239).
One problem that frequently presents itself in studies of Jordan, and one which sometimes
eme rges in Fathi's lengthy discussion of tribes, is the tendency to use the term trib es with
imprecision or to discuss the subject using ideal types. For exam ple, trib es and bed ou in
are not interchangeable terms in the Jordanian context. Even though Fathi draws attention to
this fallacy, she sometimes falls prey to it. In her discussion of the 1921 Kura rebellion, she
men tions that the bedouin are usua lly hostile to the concep t of centralized auth ority
(p . 91). Althoug h the Shurayd a family of the Kura district could be called a trib e (it was
a kinship unit), it was not a bedouin tribe. The distinction between settled tribes and bedouin
tribes is an important one, especially in the Jordanian context. Fathi should exert greater care
in discussing these distinctions and their impact on Jordanian politics. As for her ideal type,
the tribesman who is hostile to central authority, Fathi elsewhere discusses the degree to
which the bedouin did cooperate with the Ottomans and political authorities in both the
emirate and the kingdom. Clearly, bedouin did deal with centralized authority; how, when,
and why they did so remain important questions which must be approached carefully. As
Fathi herself notes in the case of the (non-bedouin) Shuraydas and in that of the
c
Adwan
bedouin revolt of 1923, the causes for these uprisings were far more specific than merely
generalized antipathy toward centralized government.
The reliance on ideal types and images creates other problems at times. In discussing the
Jordanian army and the role of tribes in it, Fathi asserts that the tribal popu lation was less
susceptible to revolu tionary think ing than its sedentary coun terpart (p. 133). When did this
quality emerge? Surely the
c
Adwan rebellion in 1923, which, as Fathi notes, was associated
with specific political deman ds for reform, indicates a tribal capab ility to articulate rev o-
lution ary dem and s. This may not be the type of radical politics she had in mind, but the
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Reviews
political quietude attributed to the bedouin needs greater clarification. The important eco-
nomic bases for bedouin loyalty to the army and the regime, as discussed by scholars such
as Tariq Tell, are vital for understanding this point.
Finally, Fathi could have improved her discussion of national identity by basing it upon
more solid data. Her manuscript relies largely on a small-scale survey carried out in northern
Jordan, press and secondary-source materials, and interviews w ith intellectuals and politicians.
But these sources cannot always support broad statements such as, integration into the na-
tional concept has taken place on a wide scale and . . . tribal and kinship ties remain strongest
within the social con text (p. 182). Basing their conclusions on election results and exit polls,
among other data, scholars such as Linda Lay ne and Abla Amawi have interpreted various par-
liamentary elections since the 1980s as ringing affirmations that family ties are still vitally im-
portant on the political level (some of this writing has dealt with the 1993 elections, which
occurred after Fathi's manu script was written). Fathi m ight also consider tempering statements
about the alleged impact of education and the media in fostering a Jordanian national
identity . . . [and] shared national culture and of the impact of midd le-class values upon the
rest of society (p. 167) unless she produces harder evidence to support this conclusion.
The issues Fathi explores in Jordan An Invented Nation? are important and worthy of
discussion. Her examination could be improved by greater precision and organization, and
the use of a greater array of sources and data, in order to avoid recourse to the time-honored
and sometimes inaccurate characterizations that she seeks to overthrow.
MICHAEL M. LASKIER, North African Jew ry in the Twentieth Century: The Jews of Morocco
Tunisia and A lgeria (New York: New York University Press, 1994). Pp. 414.
REVIEWED BY LAURENCE LOEB, Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City
Although Jews first settled in North Africa more than 2,000 years ago, and the coming of Is-
lam found Jews well ensconced in urban and rural settlements throughout the region, his-
torical studies in English of North African Jewry are very few. Among the most important
are H. Z. Hirschberg's A History of the Jews of North Africa Daniel Schroeter's Merchants
of Essaouira: Urban Society and Imperialism in Southwestern Morocco 1844-1886 Norman
Stillman's
The Jews in Arab Lands: A History and Source Book
and
The Jews in Arab Lands
in Modern Times and Michael Laskier's previous study, The Alliance Israelite Universelle
and the Jewish Comm unities of Morocco: 1862-1962. None of these works examines in detail
the modern history of North African Jewry, and the recent social history of these communities
receives barely a glance. Thus, it was with considerable curiosity and great anticipation that
this reviewer began to read this work.
Laskier's book is a well-written, competent, and altogether interesting study. Aside from
brief discussion of the Spanish Zone of Morocco, the focus is limited to French-influenced
North Africa specifically, Algeria, Mo rocco , and Tunisia. Like the author's previous w ork,
this study is innovative in its use of sourcesnotably its extensive exploration of archival
materials and the judicious use of interviews, oral recordings, and biographical information.
The data are drawn largely from French and Jewish sources. Few indigenous Arab or Berber
sources are noted, and it is unclear whether they do not exist or were unavailable to the author.
Unfortunately, for this reader, the book's scope is considerably narrower than the title
imp lies. Laskier informs us in the introduction that he will end this po litica l history in the
1960s and that he intends to (1) pro vide a political textbook on North Africa's Jewish
comm unities, (2) present an in-depth analysis of three Third World Jewish comm unities,
their exposure to modernization, and the relations with Muslims and the European settlers,
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