Life in the Moslem East

This book describes the Arabian peninsula on the eve of the First World War.

The first and only extensive treatment of the genocide of the Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East, in particular the Syriac Orthodox communities, in the late 1800s and early 1900s under the Ottomans. Courtois bases his study on the diplomatic archives of the French Foreign Affairs office (Quai d'Orsay), the archives of the Dominican Mission at Mosul, Iraq, written eyewitness accounts, and oral interviews with genocide survivors conducted by the author.

Born into the Ottoman Muslim elite, Zeyneb Hanoum and her sister Melek Hanoum were given a Western-style education by their progressive father, who expected them subsequently to live the segregated lives of Ottoman ladies. Rebelling, the sisters collaborated with the French author Pierre Loti, hoping that harnessing European intellectual support would speed up Ottoman social reform. Fleeing Istanbul in 1906 for fear of imperial reprisals, the sisters traveled in disguise to Europe, hoping to find "freedom" in the West. With Zeyneb Hanum's letters punctuated by Grace Ellison's introduction, commentary, and footnotes, this book challenges Orientalist stereotypes and documents the vibrant engagement between Eastern and Western women at the fin de siècle.

Selma Ekrem grew up among the progressive Ottoman Muslim elite. Ekrem benefited from having an unconventional mother, who did not insist on her daughter's veiling. The book covers the family's sojourns outside Istanbul when her father was governor in Jerusalem during the 1908 Young Turk revolution and then governor of the Greek Archipelago Islands, where the whole family was held captive when their island was taken by the Greeks during the Balkan Wars. Returning to Istanbul just as World War I broke out, Ekrem attended the American College for Girls. Frustrated at the restrictions of Turkish female life, Ekrem traveled to America and countered prevalent stereotypes by lecturing on Turkey.