DS154.4.R64

Includes bibliographical references (p. 256-266) and index

Introduction 1.The Transjordan frontier in 1850 2. Ottomans: establishing a permanent presence in Transjordan 3. Settlement: colonization, the application of the 1858 land law, and their fiscal consequences 4. Merchants 5. Missionaries 6. Accommodation: rapid social change in Ottoman Transjordan 7. Resistance: popular rebellion and the 1910 Karak Revolt 8. The First World War Epilogue.

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.