Islam, Oil, and War in the Modern Middle East

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) This course studies the adaptation of Islamic societies to global change, the rise of European empires, and forces of modernization. From the reforms in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire the course proceeds to the rise of national states. Special attention is paid to the role of ethnic and religious differences in regional conflicts. The course also examines the rise of such ideologies as Arab nationalism and Zionism. Major questions like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Gulf wars, and occupation of Iraq by US are discussed in this course.