The Economy by Other Means: The Historiography of Capitalism in the Modern Middle East

The history of modern political economy, a major subfield within Middle Eastern Studies, is largely considered to have been eclipsed by the growing interest in the history and politics of identity in the 1990s.  In this article, I explain the newfound academic interest in engaging with capitalism as a historical object in relation to the modern Middle East. I argue that the new rubric of “History of Capitalism,” which was forged in the context of the contemporary crisis of capitalism, has allowed historians to approach the economy anew with analytical tools drawn mainly from cultural history. Based on surveying this new body of scholarship on the modern Middle East, I suggest organizing it around three main themes: Economic Thought, Consumerism and Infrastructure. After discussing the main research questions animating each of these categories, I conclude by highlighting the potential inherent in the historiographical eclecticism of this wave of interest in studying capitalist processes.