Lorenzo Kamel 
Middle East from Empire to Sealed Identities [PDF ebook] 

This compelling analysis of the modern Middle East — based on research in 19 archives and numerous languages — shows the transition from an internal history characterised by local realities that were plural and multidimensional, and where identities were flexible and hybrid, to a simplified history largely imagined and imposed by external actors. The author demonstrates how the once-heterogeneous identities of Middle Eastern peoples were sealed into a standardised and uniform version that persists to this day. He also sheds light on the efforts that peoples in the region — in the context of a new process of homogenisation of diversities — are exerting in order to get back into history, regaining possession of their multifaceted pasts.