ABSTRACT
Western historians, if they know anything about the Middle East, know it through the controversies over Orientalism. Middle East historians, however, know their own field mostly through the rich varieties of Marxism. From the early twentieth century when Marxism first came to the region, until the 1960s, intellectuals in the Middle East embraced Marxism in order to change the world. Almost all were militants drawn to the activist features of Marxism. “Thanks to The Communist Manifesto,” remarked A. J. P. Taylor, a renowned British historian, “everyone thinks differently about politics and society, when they think at all.” The intellectuals in the Middle East were very much in the genre of what A. J. P. Taylor described as people who had done some thinking. Since the 1960s into the present, however, an increasing number of historians have been drawn to Marxism not just to change the world but more importantly to understand it. They are convinced that their society has to be understood before it can be changed. Thus the story of Marxism in the Middle East can be described as the transformation from political Marxism—relying mainly on The Communist Manifesto—to academic Marxism influenced not only by Marx’s later works but also by Gramsci, the British Marxists, the subaltern, and even the Annales School. Academic Marxism—in its many varieties—is alive and well in Middle East studies.
