Contested Modernity—Bahrain

Salam,

Discussions of the Arab world, particularly the Gulf States, increasingly focus on sectarianism and autocratic rule. These features are often attributed to the dominance of monarchs, Islamists, oil, and ‘ancient hatreds’. To understand their rise, however, one has to turn to a largely forgotten but decisive episode with far-reaching repercussions—Bahrain under British colonial rule in the early twentieth century.

Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined Arabic literature as well as British archives, Omar AlShehabi details how sectarianism emerged as a modern phenomenon in Bahrain. He shows how absolutist rule was born in the Gulf, under the tutelage of the British Raj, to counter nationalist and anti-colonial movements tied to the al-Nahda renaissance in the wider Arab world. A groundbreaking work, Contested Modernity challenges us to reconsider not only how we see the Gulf but the Middle East as a whole.

We‘ll continue with our 2026 reading list:

3-Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain—Bangladesh
4-The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China by Julia Lovell
5-Rickshaw Boy by Lao She—China
6-The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
7-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez—Colombia
8-How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
9-Heart of Darkness by Polish author Joseph Conrad—Congo
10-The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
11-Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi—Ghana
12-Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Enjoy Bahrain!

Spanish reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-libros
French reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-livres