Ben-Bassat and Büssow open their riveting analysis of Late Ottoman Gaza by striking a note that irresistibly tempts further scholarly inquiry: “Around 1900, Gaza was one of the largest and most important cities in Ottoman Palestine.” That the name “Gaza” today provokes stark images of disaster makes this statement all the more remarkable.
Gaza’s geography was both a blessing and a curse in the period under review: the 1850s to 1918. Its proximity to Egypt gave inhabitants of all classes leverage against what they deemed rapacious and unfair policies pursued by one or another representative of Ottoman rule. Wealthy families could take refuge in Egypt if targeted by governors performing their duties. Peasants could threaten to withdraw their labor power if they considered taxes higher than the limit set by a shared sense of morality. Bedouin tribes could market their “security services” if they did not receive adequate compensation.
Much of this book explains how Gazans grappled with the limitations of geography and the shortage of capital. A port with minimal facilities stood adjacent to a semi-arid desert stretching to Egypt, a land whose politics impeded, if not opposed, imperial rule. Gazans could sometimes outflank and survive threats from dominant powers or rivals in their vicinity, but what they could not do was assemble sufficient financing to build the infrastructure crucial to transforming the city into a commercial powerhouse.
Only produce carried by camels over unpaved roads could be traded from a port accommodating vessels limited in size and capacity. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the advent of steamship-based ocean transportation further degraded Gaza’s economic prospects by generating commercial behemoths in other Middle East port cities, such as Beirut, Jaffa, and Alexandria. Gaza could only sustain its port trade by expanding, when weather conditions permitted, the export of barley to Great Britain, where it was an essential ingredient in ale.
Ben-Bassat and Büssow humanize these developments by anchoring them in accounts of the lives of specific individuals and families. Their most original and engrossing tack is the deployment of city maps to depict exactly where families resided and their businesses were located. Overlaying these maps with personal information offers the reader a graphic portrayal of how Gazans actually lived and interacted.
Late Ottoman Gaza promises something entirely new and different, even as it devotes a good deal of attention to a concept with a venerable, if not old, pedigree: the politics of notables. By comparing local rivalries in Gaza with those recorded for other Arab cities and societies, the authors illustrate that the differences were as significant as the similarities. Dramatic variations in resources endowed notables with resilient but also protean powers.
Telling the history of Gaza meant confronting difficulties others might have considered impossible to overcome, making Late Ottoman Gaza an intellectual triumph. The authors meticulously distinguish between what can and cannot be known. Court records, the most widely consulted sources for sketching an urban landscape, are limited; and a single census and a handful of petitions do not entirely compensate for what is missing. Several highly partisan narratives also provide information.
This book, full of insight and as ambitious as it is erudite, deserves praise. These two scholars have returned Gaza to its history.
Donna Robinson Divine
Smith College
