Local Capitalists in the Late Ottoman Levant

Though the history of capitalism in the Middle East has been closely tied to the history of colonialism, local forms of capitalism emerged in the Ottoman Empire long before the advent of the British and French mandates. In this episode, Kristen Alff offers a new perspective on the joint-stock companies of mercantile families in the late Ottoman Levant. These families, the Sursocks being foremost among them, were largely based in Beirut, but they held property in modern-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Egypt. Throughout our discussion of these joint-stock companies, we consider what they mean for understanding a history of capitalism that pushes against a normative, Western European model and what they mean for understanding the politics of the post-Ottoman Middle East.