Negotiating for the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919-1941
James F. Goode " Negotiating for the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919-1941 "
University of Texas Press | Pages: 307 | 2007-07-01 | ISBN-029271498X | 4.9 MB
University of Texas Press | Pages: 307 | 2007-07-01 | ISBN-029271498X | 4.9 MB
This book lacks some indispensable sources on the history of archaeological explorations in Southwest Asia (or what has been called Middle East) in the period between the two World Wars. The main theme upon which the author concentrates is that the rise of a sort of nationalism or nationalistic governments in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey led to manifold uses of historical relics and monuments in order to foment the countries' development. The focus of the book is apparently Iran in the 1930s, but the author doesn't seem to be in full control of his sources. Having said that, the book takes advantage of a number of US archival documents, which is the positive point, but they should have been checked and used along with other unpublished and published sources (French and Iranian archives, in particular)in order to produce a substantial study of the history of archaeology in the Middle East.