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Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan, by Joseph A. Massad. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. xiv + 278 pages. Notes to p. 351. Works cited to p. 370. Index to p. 396. $45 cloth; $18.50 paper.
Reviewed by Laurie A. Brand
Political scientists have taken an increasing interest in the role and the sources of national identity in recent years. While not drawing his theoretical inspiration from the constructivist school, Joseph Massad has produced a detailed and provocative study of Jordanian identity. Massad's primary purpose is to demonstrate how colonial administrations, in particular the legal system and the military, have shaped the formation, evolution, and practice of national identity in post-colonial settings. Massad contends not just that the colonizers' institutions had a major impact on postindependence institutions, but rather that certain markers imposed or reinterpreted by the colonial administrators (from ways of defining citizenship and boundaries to military dress and performance) were later appropriated by indigenous nationalists and incorporated into an identity, an intrinsic part of which was anti-colonialism.
Massad is at his best discussing the direct effects of British colonialism. The first three chapters, which focus on how nationals (and non-nationals) were defined, how territories were incorporated, and how Sir John Bagot Glubb's ideas about the identity and traditions of the...