Histories of Palestine in the pre-1948 period usually assume the emergent Arab-Zionist conflict to be the central axis around which all change revolves. In Land of Progress Jacob Norris suggests an alternative historical vocabulary is needed to broaden our understanding of the region's recent past. In particular, for the architects of empire and their agents on the ground, Palestine was conceived primarily within a developmental discourse that pervaded
colonial practice from the turn of the twentieth century onwards. A far cry from the post-World War II focus on raising living standards, colonial development in the early twentieth century was more interested in
infrastructure and the exploitation of natural resources. Land of Progress charts this process at work across both the Ottoman and British periods in Palestine, focusing on two of the most salient but understudied sites of development anywhere in the colonial world: the Dead Sea and Haifa. Weaving the experiences of local individuals into a wider narrative of imperial expansion and anti-colonial resistance, Norris demonstrates the widespread excitement Palestine
generated among those who saw themselves at the vanguard of progress and modernisation, whether they were Ottoman or British, Arab or Jewish. Against this backdrop, Norris traces the gradual erosion during the
mandate period of the mixed style of development that had prevailed under the Ottoman Empire, as the new British regime viewed Zionism as the sole motor of modernisation. As a result, the book's latter stages relate the extent to which colonial development became a central issue of contestation in the struggle for Palestine that unfolded in the 1930s and 40s.
Histories of Palestine in the pre-1948 period usually assume the emergent Arab-Zionist conflict to be the central axis around which all change revolves. In Land of Progress Jacob Norris suggests an alternative historical vocabulary is needed to broaden our understanding of the region's recent past. In particular, for the architects of empire and their agents on the ground, Palestine was conceived primarily within a developmental discourse that pervaded
colonial practice from the turn of the twentieth century onwards. A far cry from the post-World War II focus on raising living standards, colonial development in the early twentieth century was more interested in
infrastructure and the exploitation of natural resources. Land of Progress charts this process at work across both the Ottoman and British periods in Palestine, focusing on two of the most salient but understudied sites of development anywhere in the colonial world: the Dead Sea and Haifa. Weaving the experiences of local individuals into a wider narrative of imperial expansion and anti-colonial resistance, Norris demonstrates the widespread excitement Palestine
generated among those who saw themselves at the vanguard of progress and modernisation, whether they were Ottoman or British, Arab or Jewish. Against this backdrop, Norris traces the gradual erosion during the
mandate period of the mixed style of development that had prevailed under the Ottoman Empire, as the new British regime viewed Zionism as the sole motor of modernisation. As a result, the book's latter stages relate the extent to which colonial development became a central issue of contestation in the struggle for Palestine that unfolded in the 1930s and 40s.
Introduction
1: Ottoman colonial development: Palestine and the Eastern
Mediterranean
2: Agents of development: Jews, Arabs, and the middlemen of
empire
3: The 'city of the future': Haifa, capital of British
Palestine
4: Palestine's 'undeveloped estate': the exploitation of the Dead
Sea
5: Toxic waters: contesting British development at Haifa and the
Dead Sea
Conclusions: the legacies of development
Bibliography
Index
Jacob Norris is Lecturer in Middle Eastern History at the
University of Sussex, following his Randall Dillard Research
Fellowship at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. In 2010 he
completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge on 'Ideologies of
Development and the British Mandate in Palestine'. Jacob divides
his time between Palestine/Israel where he carries out most of his
research and Cambridge where he lectures and supervises on the
Middle East
components of the History Faculty's world history papers. His is
currently working on a social history of Bethlehem in the
nineteenth century, documenting the changes that occurred in the
town as a result of
its residents' global interactions during this period.
a must-read book that may or may not convince the reader but will
certainly instigate a healthy debate.
*Roberto Mazza, Middle Eastern Studies*
Jacob Norris should be congratulated for having written an
outstanding book, full of welcome revisionist insight and backed up
by an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge.
*Fredrik Meiton, Arab Studies Quarterly*
Land of Progress is a significant contribution to the growing body
of scholarship emphasizing continuities from the Ottoman period to
de-construct the ethno-national conflict intensifying under the
auspices of the British Empire.
*Max Reibman, Journal of Levantine Studies*
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