The project deals with the rise of durable authoritarian regimes in the Middle East by the middle of the twentieth century against the backdrop three interrelated processes: (1) the accession to political independence of most countries in the region following national liberation struggles; (2) the establishment of a new contentious regional Arab order; and (3) the extension of superpower rivalries to the Middle East in the early decades of the Cold War. 
It focuses more particularly on two countries that played a central role in the unfolding of political and socio-economic developments of the region at that time, namely Egypt and Syria. 

Author: Carol Hakim