Download or read book Middle East from Empire to Sealed Identities written by Lorenzo Kamel and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling analysis of the modern Middle East - based on research in 19 archives and numerous languages - shows the transition from an internal history characterised by local realities that were plural and multidimensional, and where identities were flexible and hybrid, to a simplified history largely imagined and imposed by external actors. The author demonstrates how the once-heterogeneous identities of Middle Eastern peoples were sealed into a standardised and uniform version that persists to this day. He also sheds light on the efforts that peoples in the region - in the context of a new process of homogenisation of diversities - are exerting in order to get back into history, regaining possession of their multifaceted pasts.