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Research Guides

HSTRY 498B: Cities in the Modern Middle East: Secondary: Books & Journal Articles

Selected eBooks

Preserving the Old City of Damascus
Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai
Dynamism in the Urban Society of Damascus: The Ṣāliḥiyya Quarter from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Centuries
Shiraz in the Age of Hafez: The Glory of a Medieval Persian City
Alexandria: City of Gifts and Sorrows
Dubai: Gilded Cage
Gateways to the World: Port Cities in the Persian Gulf
Historical Muscat: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer
Tel-Aviv, the First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities
Queer Beirut
Architecture and the Turkish City : An Urban History of Istanbul since the Ottomans
Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious
Whose City Is That? Culture, Design, Spectacle and Capital in Istanbul
The Ottoman Cities of Lebanon: Historical Legacy and Identity in the Modern Middle East
Order and Disorder: Urban Governance and the Making of Middle Eastern Cities
Social Housing in the Middle East: Architecture, Urban Development, and Transnational Modernity
Zionist Architecture and Town Planning: The Building of Tel Aviv (1919 - 1929)

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Google Scholar

Because scholarly material for this class crosses disciplinary lines it can be useful to search the content of articles & books via Google Scholar. 

Scholarly Books & Journals as Research Resources

The raison d'être of historians is to explore the past and attempt to describe, explain, interpret and analyze it. Historians use evidence from the past (primary sources) to support their interpretations which are most often published in the form of books and journal articles (secondary sources). So why should you use secondary sources?

Strengths

  • Written by expert scholars. Before publication academic books and articles are vetted by other scholars in a process known as peer review.
  • Peer review ensures that scholarly books and articles are more reliable and credible than other types of publications.
  • Provide historical/broader/in depth context and analysis of a topic. For example, if you are researching the Jewish quarter in Tehran, you may want to use a scholarly source to get information on how Tehran's quarter compares with Jewish areas in other Middle East cities. 
  • Scholarly articles and books are based on evidence (primary sources) that are cited in the footnotes and bibliography. They are often a quick way to identify important evidence that you too may wish to use in your research paper. You can use this evidence and present your own interpretation.
 

Keep in mind

  • Expert scholars are likely to use specialized terminology and theory in their analyses making scholarly articles and books sometimes difficult to understand.
  • There are fewer scholarly sources written about smaller cities than larger or more historically significant places.

How to Read Scholarly Books & Articles

Scholarly articles and books have a purpose -- an argument (also called a thesis) that they are attempting to make about an issue and present evidence to support this argument. As you read a scholarly article first check to see if there is an abstract, a brief overview of the article. This will give you an idea if the article will be relevant for your research. Then look for the author's argument. Ask yourself, does the author adequately support their argument with evidence.

For more information on reading a scholarly article see: Analyzing Scholarly Articles, How to Read an Academic Article & How to Read a Secondary Source.
Tags: spring 2022