1st Edition

An Economic History of the Middle East and North Africa

By Charles Issawi Copyright 1982
    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary.

    This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years.

    In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.

    Abbreviations and Symbols viii

    Preface xi

    I Challenge and Response, 1800–1980 1

    Impact

    II Expansion of Foreign Trade 17

    III Development of Transport 44

    IV The Influx of Foreign Capital 62

    V Migration and Minorities 77

    Response

    VI Population, Level of Living, and Social Development 93

    VII Agricultural Expansion 118

    VIII Deindustrialization and Reindustrialization 150

    IX Institutions and Policy, Money and Prices, Savings and Investment 170

    X Petroleum: Transformation or Exposion? 194

    XI The Balance Sheet 210

    Statistical Appendix 229

    Notes 239

    Selected Bibliography 265

    Subject Index 299

    Index of Principal Names and Places 301

    Biography

    Charles Issawi