Lorenzo Kamel is a Full Professor of History at the University of Turin and at Luiss University in Rome. He has taught in many universities in the Middle East, the US, and Europe, including the University of Bologna, the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, where he served as a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher, and Harvard University, where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow for 2 years. He published ten books on Middle Eastern and Mediterranean affairs, including Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times (2015), winner of the 2016 Palestine Academic Book Award.

• Lists of Figures Abbreviations Note on TransliterationAcknowledgements Introduction: The Past’s Present Chapter 1. Beyond ‘Tribes’ and ‘Sects’: On Concepts and TermsChapter 2. The First Moment; 1830s: The Germs of Competing Ethno-Religious Visions Chapter 3. The Second Moment; The Tanẓīmāt’s Long Waves: Politicising Ethno-Religious DifferencesChapter 4. The Third Moment; From Ethnocentric Drives to a New Millet SystemChapter 5. Balfour’s ‘Pattern’Chapter 6. The Racialisation of Middle Eastern PeopleChapter 7. Beyond ‘Artificiality’: Borders, States, NationsConclusion: The Present’s PastIndex

This important book is a multidisciplinary analysis of the cultural, social and religious history of the Middle East... Thanks to its meticulous philological rigor, the book provides a reconstruction of a complex history characterised by a local milieu that has been often simplified, imagined and imposed by actors and observers external to the region.