Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921

Until the mid-nineteenth century, Transjordan was a frontier region of the Ottoman province of Syria. In a time of European challenges to Ottoman integrity, the region's strategic location, linking Syria to Palestine and Arabia, motivated the Ottoman state to extend direct rule over this region. Using new archival material from Ottoman, Arabic and European sources, Eugene Rogan documents the case of Transjordan to provide a theoretically informed and articulate account of how the Ottoman state restructured and redefined itself during the last decades of its empire. In so doing, he explores the idea of frontier as a geographical and cultural boundary, and sheds light on the processes of state formation which ultimately led to the creation of the Middle East as it is defined today. The book concludes with an examination of the Ottoman legacy in the modern state of Jordan. Awarded both the Albert Hourani Book Award and the Turkish Studies Association Koprulu Prize at the Middle East Studies Association conference in November 2000.