History

Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire

MOSTAFA MINAWI

Losing Istanbul offers an intimate history of empire, following the rise and fall of a generation of Arab-Ottoman imperialists living in Istanbul. Mostafa Minawi shows how these men and women negotiated their loyalties and guarded their privileges through a microhistorical study of the changing social, political, and cultural currents between 1878 and the First World War. He narrates lives lived in these turbulent times— the joys and fears, triumphs and losses, pride and prejudices— while focusing on the complex dynamics of ethnicity and race in an increasingly Turco-centric imperial capital.

Drawing on archival records, newspaper articles, travelogues, personal letters, diaries, photos, and interviews, Minawi shows how the loyalties of these imperialists were questioned and their ethnic identification weaponized. As the once diverse empire comes to an end, they are forced to give up their home in the imperial capital. An alternative history of the last four decades of the Ottoman Empire, Losing Istanbul frames global pivotal events through the experiences of Arab-Ottoman imperial loyalists who called Istanbul home, on the eve of a vanishing imperial world order.

Mostafa Minawi is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University. He is the author of The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz (Stanford, 2016).

THE HAPPINESS OF THE BRITISH WORKING CLASS

JAMIE L. BRONSTEIN

For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedonic pleasure, foster and deepen social relationships, drive individuals to self-improvement, and lead them to look back over their lives and evaluate whether they were well-lived. However, not all working-class autobiographers shared the same concepts or valorizations of happiness, as variables such as geography, gender, political affiliation, and social and economic mobility often influenced the way they defined and experienced their emotional lives.

The Happiness of the British Working Class employs and analyzes over 350 autobiographies of individuals in England, Scotland, and Ireland to explore the sources of happiness of British working people born before 1870. Drawing from careful examinations of their personal narratives, Jamie L. Bronstein investigates the ways in which working people thought about the good life as seen through their experiences with family and friends, rewarding work, interaction with the natural world, science and creativity, political causes and religious commitments, and physical and economic struggles. Informed by the history of emotions and the philosophical and social-scientific literature on happiness, this book reflects broadly on the industrial-era working-class experience in an era of immense social and economic change.

Jamie L. Bronstein is Professor of U.S. and British History at New Mexico State University.

DECEMBER 2022 304 pages | 6x9 12 halftones, 1 map Paper $28.00 (£20.99) SDT 9781503634046 Cloth $90.00 (£69.00) SDT 9781503633162 eBook 9781503634053 History JANUARY 2023 296 pages | 6x9 Paper $30.00 (£22.99) SDT 9781503633841 Cloth $90.00 (£69.00) SDT 9781503630499 eBook 9781503633858 History