This article shows how the Enlightenment notion of improvement in a cross-cultural context cannot be one of constant polarization. Without ever travelling to the Middle East, the Scottish Enlightenment literati proposed that the Middle East is backward and primitive in its economic and material infrastructure. Europe is progressing while the Middle East remained stuck in ancient times. John Carmichael could not escape the European repository of knowledge about the Orient. In his “Journey from Aleppo to Basra” (1754), he sometimes considered Arabs are irrational, backward and primitive. Yet the conditions of traveling in an Arab caravan invited him to interact with the people he encountered. He socialized and exchanged services with the Arabs. At the same time he learned how modern progress needs not be looked at as one of complete banishment of ancient rituals and traditions from the past. The journey in the Middle East has its educational effects.
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John Carmichael's Journey from Aleppo to Basra (1754)
A Pluralized View of the Enlightenment Discourse of Improvement
Mohammad Sakhnini
Nahrain al-Mousawi
emergence of a (state-supported) theatre infrastructure and an increase in theatre production. The debates between drama critics revolved around the quality of translation for theatre, as opposed to other media and platforms. Hanna cites Jalāl al
Mediating the Rural Ideal
The Australian Town in Twentieth-Century Travel
Louise Prowse
cultural shifts; its primary function is to reflect rather than drive changes in representing rural tourism. Second, travel media works to focus the tourist’s gaze, placing increased emphasis on rural infrastructure or place identity. Consequently, the
Deborah Evans
. However, this does not preclude cross-civilisational financial and economic cooperation as testified by, for example, fast-growing investment in building infrastructure and education in the West by the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The jihadist
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 99–105 (7 total)
The Continent Behind
Alienation and the American Scene in George William Curtis’s Lotus-Eating: A Summer Book
James Weaver
mediated by the presence of the mill-dam, the bar-room, and the larger hotel. While Curtis evidences some misgivings about this tourist infrastructure and its potential for separating the individual from the natural world, he ultimately views these luxuries
Nicole Hudgins
contends, however, that the anthropomorphic language of ruins was also linked to the determination in France to restore national infrastructure and private property to “normalcy”—that is, to prewar order and appearance. Unable to reverse the human
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2016
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 51–70 (20 total)
“I Was Not Willing to Risk my Hajj”
Information Coping Strategies of Hajj Pilgrims
Nadia Caidi
Operators as Gatekeepers As the number of pilgrims to Hajj steadily increased over time (resulting in strain on the infrastructure), the Saudi Ministry of Hajj along with the Organization of Islamic Conference introduced a system of quotas for each country
Jackie Clarke, Melanie Kay Smith, Margret Jäger, Anne O’Connor, and Robert Shepherd
shown to be a continuation of nineteenth-century discourses on travel. This book is an important contribution to the study of the massification of tourism at a time of technological, infrastructural, and social change in Irish society. Charting a range
The “Moral Effect” of Legalized Lawlessness
Violence in Britain’s Twentieth-Century Empire
Caroline Elkins
, where they destroyed vast swaths of Palestine’s infrastructure. As Britain scrambled to reassemble a new leadership cadre to take charge and crush the rebellion once and for all, a lone intelligence officer, Captain Orde Wingate, stepped forward with an
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2018
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 78–90 (13 total)
Mark S. Micale
, competitive world. Pakistan obtained nuclear capability in 1998, and North Korea did so in the past few years, bringing the number of nations so equipped to nine. Iran developed an extensive nuclear infrastructure that is now being monitored closely. Since
In Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2018
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 128–139 (12 total)