Since 2011 over 5.6 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and beyond, and another 6.6 million are internally displaced. The contemporary flight of Syrian refugees comes one century after the region's formative experience with massive upheaval, displacement, and geopolitical intervention: the First World War. In this book, Stacy Fahrenthold examines the politics of Syrian and Lebanese migration around the period of the First World War. Some half million Arab migrants, nearly all still subjects of the Ottoman Empire, lived in a diaspora concentrated in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. They faced new demands for their political loyalty from Istanbul, which commanded them to resist European colonialism. From the Western hemisphere, Syrian migrants grappled with political suspicion, travel restriction, and outward displays of support for the war against the Ottomans. From these diasporic communities, Syrians used their ethnic associations, commercial networks, and global press to oppose Ottoman rule, collaborating with the Entente powers because they believed this war work would bolster the cause of Syria's liberation. Between the Ottomans and the Entente shows how these communities in North and South America became a geopolitical frontier between the Young Turk Revolution and the early French Mandate. It examines how empires at war-from the Ottomans to the French-embraced and claimed Syrian migrants as part of the state-building process in the Middle East. In doing so, they transformed this diaspora into an epicenter for Arab nationalist politics. Drawing on transnational sources from migrant activists, this wide-ranging work reveals the degree to which Ottoman migrants "became Syrians" while abroad and brought their politics home to the post-Ottoman Middle East.

About the Author
Stacy D. Fahrenthold is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Davis.

Reviews
This extensively documented examination of an ethnic population during a critical time in world history should be of interest to historians. Unlike other historical analyses that restrict the examination of the early Arab diaspora to the United States, this text attempts to link movements and events in the early 1900s by civilians in the Arab American diaspora in South America and the United States through their connections to the Ottoman Empire and the Entente (the Allied powers in World War I).... Fahrenthold lays out what transpired in the diaspora juxtaposed to Ottoman actions and policies that affected Syrian communities in the Americas....The thick description and intense detail make this text important to the study of the Arab diaspora in the Americas. * Rosina Hassoun, Journal of American History *
This book will be welcomed by scholars of migration history and Arab American history. It should be a recommendation for any course on Middle East migration or on the formation of race in America with reference to migrants from the Islamic world. The archival research is rich and varied, offering accounts as to how the diaspora sat between oppositional forces that tried to pull its members in several directions. Arabic newspapers and regulatory documents feature as prime pieces of information used to understand the physical and ideological trajectories of the mahjar. * Laren Banko, Mashriq & Mahjar *
"Stacey Fahrenthold's innovative and engaging book analyses the politics and politicking of Syrians and Lebanese in the mahjar (diaspora) in a welcome contribution to the literature on Syrian and Lebanese history as well as diasporic nationalisms....Rather than presuming their marginality, Fahrenthold invests migrants with historical agency and centers them in their national histories.This comprehensive and compelling work will advance the study of the twentieth century Middle East and make a substantial new contribution to global history." James Casey, 10/09/2019


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award of the Arab American Book Awards Winner of the Khayrallah Prize in Migration Studies of the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies Winner of the Syrian Studies Association Book Prize.



Book Information
ISBN 9780190872137
Author Stacy D. Fahrenthold
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 499g
Dimensions(mm) 163mm * 239mm * 25mm