Albert Habib Hourani was one of the most prominent scholars of
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
for much of the second half of the 20th century.
He was born in
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of Soumaya Rassi and Fadlo Issa Hourani, immigrants from what is now South Lebanon. His brothers were
George HouraniGeorge Fadlo Hourani was a British philosopher and classicist of Lebanese descent. He was the son of Fadlo Hourani, a Lebanese Christian shipping merchant, who was Lebanese counsel in Manchester...
and Cecil Hourani. His family had converted from Greek Orthodoxy
to
Scottish PresbyterianismThe Church of Scotland , known informally by its Scots language name, The Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
and his father was an elder of the local church in Manchester.
Albert Habib Hourani was one of the most prominent scholars of
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern
historyHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
for much of the second half of the 20th century.
He was born in
ManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. In 2007, the population of the city was estimated to be 458,100...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of Soumaya Rassi and Fadlo Issa Hourani, immigrants from what is now South Lebanon. His brothers were
George HouraniGeorge Fadlo Hourani was a British philosopher and classicist of Lebanese descent. He was the son of Fadlo Hourani, a Lebanese Christian shipping merchant, who was Lebanese counsel in Manchester...
and Cecil Hourani. His family had converted from Greek Orthodoxy
to
Scottish PresbyterianismThe Church of Scotland , known informally by its Scots language name, The Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
and his father was an elder of the local church in Manchester. Hourani himself, however, converted to
CatholicismThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
in adulthood.
Hourani was educated in Manchester and
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
before attending
Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million....
, where he studied
Philosophy, Politics, Economics and HistoryPhilosophy, Politics and Economics or Politics, Philosophy, and Economics is a popular interdisciplinary undergraduate degree which combines study from the three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in PPE was the University of Oxford...
(with an emphasis on
international relationsInternational relations or International studies represents the study of foreign affairs and global issues among states within the international system, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , non-governmental organizations , and multinational corporations...
in the politics section of the degree), graduating first in his class in 1936. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he worked at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and in the office of the British
Minister of StateMinister of State is a title borne by politicians or officials in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a "minister of state" is a junior minister, who is assigned to assist a specific cabinet minister...
in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
. After the war's end, he worked at the Arab Office in
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
and London, where he helped prepare the Arab case for the
Anglo-American Committee of InquiryThe Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was a joint British and American attempt in 1946 to agree upon a policy as regards the admission of Jews to Palestine. The Committee was tasked to consult representative Arabs and Jews on the problems of Palestine, and to make other recommendations 'as may be...
.
He began his academic career, which would occupy the rest of his life, in 1948, teaching at
Magdalen CollegeMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million....
,
St. Antony's CollegeSt Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...
(where he created and directed the college's Middle East Centre), the
American University of BeirutThe American University of Beirut is a secular, private, independent, university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionary Daniel Bliss in 1866. The name was changed to the American University of Beirut on November 18, 1920...
, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He ended his academic career as Fellow of
St. Antony's CollegeSt Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...
and Reader in the History of the Modern Middle East at Oxford. Hourani trained more academic historians of the modern Middle East than any other university historian of his generation. Today his students can be found on the faculties of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, MIT and the University of Haifa, among others.
Hourani's most popular work is
A History of the Arab PeoplesA History of the Arab Peoples is a book written by the British-born Lebanese historian Albert Hourani.The book presents the history of the Arabs from the advent of Islam to the late 20th Century...
(1991), a readable introduction to the history of the Middle East and an international best seller.
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1789-1939 (1962) is one of the first scientific attempts at a comprehensive analysis of the
nahda, the Arab revival of the nineteenth century, and the opening of the Arab world to modern European culture, and remains one of the major works on this subject.
Syria and Lebanon (1946) and
Minorities in the Arab World (1947) are other major works. He also wrote extensive works on the
orientalistOrientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists. An "Orientalist" may be a person engaged in these activities, but it is also the traditional term for any scholar of Oriental studies...
perspective on Middle Eastern cultures through the 18th and 19th centuries, and he developed the influential concept of the "urban notables" -- political and social elites in provincial Middle Eastern cities and towns that served as intermediaries between imperial capitals (such as Istanbul under the Ottoman Turks) and provincial society.
The top book prize in the Middle Eastern studies field is named the
Albert Hourani Book AwardThe Albert Hourani Book Award is a non-fiction book award given by the Middle East Studies Association to the year's most notable book in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies. On occasion the award has been shared by two authors. Named after the scholar Albert Hourani, the award was first given in...
and it is given annually by the
Middle East Studies Association of North AmericaMiddle East Studies Association of North America is, according to its website, "a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs,...
(MESA). Hourani was an Honorary Fellow of both MESA and the American Historical Association (AHA).
Hourani married Odile Wegg-Prosser in 1955, while teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. He died in Oxford at the age of 77. Mrs. Odile Hourani (b. 1914) died in 2003, shortly after the tenth anniversary of her husband's death. They are both buried at Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford. Their daughter, Dr. Susanna Hourani, survives them. She is Professor of Pharmacology and Head of Department in the School of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences of the
University of SurreyThe University of Surrey is a university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology...
, UK.
External links
- Albert Hourani: Islam, Christianity and Orientalism an assessment of Albert Hourani which was published in the 2003 edition of the St Antony's College Record
- Albert Hourani (1915-93) an obituary published in the Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association
- Abdulaziz A. Al-Sudairi, A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani, London, I.B. Tauris. One of his relitaves is named Selina Hourani born May 8th 1999.