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Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921, by Eugene L. Rogan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xiv + 255 pages. Bibl. to p. 266. Index to p. 274. $64.95.
Eugene L. Rogan's impressively-researched book is a welcome addition to the burgeoning field of Ottoman provincial history-a field that is redefining Ottoman historiography by substituting detailed and nuanced archival-based studies for the essentialized formulations that had all too often marked earlier Ottoman scholarship. That which distinguishes Rogan's book from other histories of the provinces is the combination of time period and locale he has chosen for his study. Concentrating on the Ottoman Transjordanian frontier during a period of imperial reassertion enables Rogan to explore such issues as state-formation and territorial integration and acculturation with a single-mindedness reminiscent of Eugen Weber's pursuit of similar themes in his ground-breaking Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Indeed, by taking advantage of a full range of imperial and local sources, Rogan avoids the snares of nationalist historiography and situates the history of the Transjordanian frontier squarely within the context of an Ottoman state which,...