Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East
Samuel Dolbee
Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East - 316 p., ill.; 24 cm - Studies in Environment and History .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Sultans of the open lands (1858-1890) -- "Savage swarms" (1890-1908) -- "Weren't we a lot like those creatures?" (1908-1918) -- "Like swarms of locusts" (1918-1939).
"In this highly original environmental history, Samuel Dolbee sheds new light on borders and state formation by following locusts and revealing how they shaped both the environment and people's imaginations from the late Ottoman Empire to the Second World War. Drawing on a wide range of archival research in multiple languages, Dolbee details environmental, political, and spatial transformations in the region's history by tracing the movements of locusts and their intimate relationship to people in motion, including Arab and Kurdish nomads, Armenian deportees, and Assyrian refugees, as well as states of the region. With locusts and moving people at center stage, surprising continuities and ruptures appear in the Jazira, the borderlands of today's Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Transcending approaches focused on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or the creation of nation states, Dolbee provides a new perspective on the modern Middle East grounded in environmental change, state violence, and popular resistance. Samuel Dolbee is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Vanderbilt University"--
Locusts--Migration--History--Middle East--19th century
Locusts--Migration--History--Middle East--20th century
Boundaries--History--Middle East--19th century
Boundaries--History--Middle East--20th century
Human ecology--History--Middle East--19th century
Human ecology--History--Middle East--20th century
Middle East--Environmental conditions--19th century
Middle East--Environmental conditions--20th century
Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East - 316 p., ill.; 24 cm - Studies in Environment and History .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Sultans of the open lands (1858-1890) -- "Savage swarms" (1890-1908) -- "Weren't we a lot like those creatures?" (1908-1918) -- "Like swarms of locusts" (1918-1939).
"In this highly original environmental history, Samuel Dolbee sheds new light on borders and state formation by following locusts and revealing how they shaped both the environment and people's imaginations from the late Ottoman Empire to the Second World War. Drawing on a wide range of archival research in multiple languages, Dolbee details environmental, political, and spatial transformations in the region's history by tracing the movements of locusts and their intimate relationship to people in motion, including Arab and Kurdish nomads, Armenian deportees, and Assyrian refugees, as well as states of the region. With locusts and moving people at center stage, surprising continuities and ruptures appear in the Jazira, the borderlands of today's Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Transcending approaches focused on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or the creation of nation states, Dolbee provides a new perspective on the modern Middle East grounded in environmental change, state violence, and popular resistance. Samuel Dolbee is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Vanderbilt University"--
Locusts--Migration--History--Middle East--19th century
Locusts--Migration--History--Middle East--20th century
Boundaries--History--Middle East--19th century
Boundaries--History--Middle East--20th century
Human ecology--History--Middle East--19th century
Human ecology--History--Middle East--20th century
Middle East--Environmental conditions--19th century
Middle East--Environmental conditions--20th century