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A ‘new’ economic history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region

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  • Mohamed Saleh

Abstract

This article argues that there is a need to develop a ‘new' economic and social history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region that is based on exploiting novel sources of data, including (a) primary papyrological sources from the medieval period, (b) primary sources at the region's local archives and European (colonial) archives, and (c) primary sources from the ancient (pre-Islamic) period. The proposed ‘new' history of the MENA region must be inter-disciplinary for two reasons: (a) digitizing and employing these novel data sources in research requires the collaboration of social scientists, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, demographers and papyrologists, as well as the co-operation of MENA-based scholars who have better access to MENA's local archives, and (b) even if these novel sources are digitized, data limitations are likely to impose a constraint on the reach of quantitative analysis and thus necessitate an inter-disciplinary methodology that combines quantitative evidence with historical analysis.
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  • Mohamed Saleh, 2017. "A ‘new’ economic history of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(2), pages 149-163, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:etrans:v:25:y:2017:i:2:p:149-163
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecot.12128
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    1. Saleh, Mohamed, 2018. "On the Road to Heaven: Taxation, Conversions, and the Coptic-Muslim Socioeconomic Gap in Medieval Egypt," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(2), pages 394-434, June.
    2. Nunn, Nathan, 2009. "The Importance of History for Economic Development," Scholarly Articles 33077824, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    3. Timur Kuran, 2004. "Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped: Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 71-90, Summer.
    4. Saleh, Mohamed, 2015. "The Reluctant Transformation: State Industrialization, Religion, and Human Capital in Nineteenth-Century Egypt," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 65-94, March.
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    11. Mohamed Saleh, 2013. "A Pre-Colonial Population Brought to Light: Digitization of the Nineteenth Century Egyptian Censuses," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 5-18, March.
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    1. Philippe Aghion & Ralph Haas & Guido Friebel & Sergei Guriev & Jan Luksic, 2017. "Introduction to the Special Issue on the Economics of the Middle East and North Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(2), pages 141-148, April.

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