No idea has captured the imagination or expressed the hopes of Arabs in
the twentieth century as has Arab nationalism, and perhaps no subject
has received so much attention from historians of the Middle East. But,
while many historians have explored its intellectual sources, few have
considered the social and political environment in which Arab
nationalism evolved as an ideological movement. This study attempts to
correct the imbalance and, in the process, provides a fascinating
interpretation of the rise of the ideology of nationalism within the
Arab world. The book focuses on the social and political life of the
great notable families of Ottoman Damascus, who, before World War I,
played a crucial part in translating the idea into political action. Dr
Khoury explains how such long-term factors as the Ottoman reformation,
European economic expansion and agrarian commercialization in Syria
encouraged rival and socially differentiated networks of influential
families to merge into a cohesive upper class. Under the umbrella of a
reinvigorated Ottoman central authority, this class of landowners and
bureaucrats produced a new urban leadership, which dominated local
politics after 1860.