- Albert Hourani
Albert Habib Hourani ( _ar. ألبرت حبيب حوراني;
March 31 ,1915 –January 17 ,1993 ) was one of the most prominent scholars ofMiddle East ernhistory for much of the second half of the 20th century.He was born in
Manchester ,England , the son of Soumaya Rassi and Fadlo Issa Hourani, [ [http://mahfood.marjeyoun.net/Horany.html Horany ] ] immigrants from what is now South Lebanon. His brothers wereGeorge Hourani andCecil Hourani . His family had converted fromGreek Orthodoxy to Scottish Presbyterianism and his father was an elder of the local church in Manchester. Hourani himself, however, converted to Catholicism in adulthood.Hourani was educated in Manchester and
London before attendingMagdalen College, Oxford , where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (with an emphasis oninternational relations in the politics section of the degree), graduating first in his class in 1936. DuringWorld War II , he worked at theRoyal Institute of International Affairs and in the office of the BritishMinister of State inCairo . After the war's end, he worked at the Arab Office inJerusalem and London, where he helped prepare the Arab case for theAnglo-American Committee of Inquiry .He began his academic career, which would occupy the rest of his life, in 1948, teaching at Magdalen College, St. Antony's College (where he created and directed the college's Middle East Center), the
American University of Beirut , the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He ended his academic career as Fellow of St. Antony's College and Reader in the History of the Modern Middle East at Oxford. Hourani trained more academic historians of the modern Middle East than any other university historian of his generation. Today his students can be found on the faculties of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, MIT, Hebrew University and the University of Haifa, among others.Hourani's most popular work is "A History of the Arab Peoples" (1991), a readable introduction to the history of the Middle East and an international best seller. "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1789-1939" (1962) is one of the first scientific attempts at a comprehensive analysis of the "
nahda ", the Arab revival of the nineteenth century, and the opening of the Arab world to modern European culture, and remains one of the major works on this subject. "Syria and Lebanon" (1946) and "Minorities in the Arab World" (1947) are other major works. He also wrote extensive works on the orientalist perspective on Middle Eastern cultures through the 18th and 19th centuries, and he developed the influential concept of the "urban notables" -- political and social elites in provincial Middle Eastern cities and towns that served as intermediaries between imperial capitals (such as Istanbul under the Ottoman Turks) and provincial society.His 3 great great great great cousins are Fouad,Selina and Christina Hourani.The top book prize in the Middle Eastern studies field is named the " [http://mesa.wns.ccit.arizona.edu/excellence/hourani_winners_list.htm Albert Hourani Book Award] " and it is given annually by the
Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). Hourani was an Honorary Fellow of both MESA and the American Historical Association (AHA).Hourani married Odile Wegg-Prosser in 1955, while teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. He died in Oxford at the age of 77. Mrs. Odile Hourani (b. 1914) died in 2003, shortly after the tenth anniversary of her husband's death. They are both buried at Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford. Their daughter, Dr. Susanna Hourani, survives them. She is Professor of Pharmacology and Head of Department in the School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences of the
University of Surrey , UK.References
External links
* [http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/antonians/record2003.pdf Albert Hourani: Islam, Christianity and Orientalism] an assessment of Albert Hourani which was published in the 2003 edition of the St Antony's College Record
* [http://fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/Bulletin/36-1/36-1HouraniBio.htm Albert Hourani (1915-93)] an obituary published in the Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association
* Abdulaziz A. Al-Sudairi, A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani, London, I.B. Tauris.
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