Fezzes in the River: Identity Politics and European Diplomacy in the Middle East on the Eve of World War II

(Oxford University Press)   On the eve of World War II, the people of the Alexandretta region in Turkey — Arabs, Armenians, Circassians, Kurds, and Turks — were forced to choose between their Turkish and Arab identities. In the end, the European Great Powers determined the fate of the region, leading to a new kind of identity politics that set in motion the dysfunctional democracy still present in the Middle East. Shields is the Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.