Hilary Falb Kalisman. Teachers as State-Builders: Education and The Making of the Modern Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. xxi + 274 pages. Paperback, $29.95.

• Author: Wang, Xun

Based on primarily archive analysis of both memoirs of influential individual educators and "collective biograph of educators as a social group," Kalisman explores the teachers' role as state-builders in the modern Middle East. She is particularly interested in several important questions including political manifestation in education, arena educators attempted to engage, and the role teachers played in the process of state-building.

The book is divided into five chapters. In Chapter 1, Kalisman reviews the historical legacies of education in the region from the mid-nineteenth century through World War I. The education during this period was marked with several very interesting features. First, there was a transition from the traditional education to modern education. There was significant differences between the traditional "Kuttab" and the modern schools in terms of location, content of teaching, quality of teachers, roles of teachers, students' composition, discipline actions, etc. Second, curriculum, pedagogical style, size of schools and languages used varied significantly in both government and nongovernment schools. Third, the Ottoman government was eager to train students to become part of cadre of civil servants. Fourth, because of lack of schools, both students and teachers need to travel even after the imposition of mandate borders. Finally, the schools in Arab Provinces are very diverse and in flux, particularly with religious and foreign institutions. Kalisman concludes that the education system in the region showed profound lack of systemization, both at institutional and individual levels. Nevertheless, the Ottoman government was trying to push educational reform including expansion, standardization, and improvement for its survival. It is important to note that government schooling and government employment are closely related.

Chapter 2 reviews the education system and changes in the interwar years in two periods. During the first period, British officials followed Ottoman regulations on education in the region. Then, education laws and regulations were promulgated in Iraq, Transjordan and Palestinen from 1929 to 1939. British adopted varies tactics combining "reliance on religious, foreign and missionary schools, as well as a continuation of Ottoman laws and infrastructure" to protect colonial interests. They wanted to offer elite education to small number of local residents and basic education to lower class of farmers to...