Historiography in Saudi Arabia: Globalization and the State in the Middle East

الغلاف الأمامي
Bloomsbury Publishing, 25‏/10‏/2013 - 352 من الصفحات
Saudi Arabia is generally and justifiably viewed as a country with the fewest democratic institutions and the weakest traditions of pluralism in the world. It is therefore surprising to learn that at least in one corner of the Saudi world, there is a plurality voices. Jörg Matthias Determann brings this element to light by analysing an important field of cultural activity in Saudi Arabia: historical writing. By exploring the emergence of a plurality of historical narratives in the absence of formal political pluralism, Determann seeks to paint a more nuanced picture of Saudi Arabia than has previously been drawn.

Since the 1920s local, tribal, Shi'i and dynastic histories have contributed to a growing plurality of narratives, diverging from and contesting the histories which focus on the royal family. Instead, they have emphasized the communities' historical independence from the House of Saud or asserting the communities' importance in Saudi national history. In addition to this, during the 1970s, distinct social and economic histories began to be developed, new narratives which have described important historical events evolving from wider social and economic factors rather than resulting from the actions of individual rulers or communities. Paradoxically, this happened because of the expansion of the Saudi state, including state-provision of mass education. A variety of previously illiterate and relatively poor sections of Saudi society, including former Bedouin, were thus empowered to produce histories which, while conformist for the most part, also provided a vehicle for dissenting voices. Furthermore, Determann argues that this proliferation of alternative histories is also due to globalizing processes, such as the spread of the internet. It is through this phenomenon that narrative plurality has been facilitated, by putting Saudi historians in contact with different ideologies, methodologies and source material from abroad.

In challenging the widely-held perception of Saudi Arabia as an irredeemably closed and monolithic society, Historiography in Saudi Arabia provides a deeper understanding of modern Arab historiography, the Saudi state, and education and scholarship in the Middle East.
 

المحتوى

Note on Transliteration Translation and References
Histories of a Muslim Arab Dynasty Early Beginnings to 1960s
Particularistic Local Histories 1920s to 1970s
The Saudization of Dynastic Historiography 1960s to Present
Asserting Towns Tribes and the Shiites in National History
Social and Economic Histories 1970s to Present
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
حقوق النشر

طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات

عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة

نبذة عن المؤلف (2013)

Jörg Matthias Determann is Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar. He is the author of four books published by I.B. Tauris: Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life (2020); Space Science and the Arab World (2018); Researching Biology and Evolution in the Gulf States (2015); and Historiography in Saudi Arabia (2013).

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