Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The Connected World of Empires / C. A. Bayly and Leila Fawaz -- 1. Trade and Port Cities in the Red Sea - Gulf of Aden Region in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century / Michel Tuchscherer -- 2. A Divided Sea: The Cairo Coffee Trade in the Red Sea Area during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / Andre Raymond -- 3. The Red Sea Ports During the Revolution in Transportation, 1800-1914 / Colette Dubois -- 4. Port Cities as Nodal Points of Change: The Indian Ocean, 1890s-1920s / Kenneth McPherson -- 5. Haifa at the Crossroads: An Outpost of the New World Order / May Seikaly -- 6. Islamic Universalism and the Construction of Regional Identity in Turn-of-the-Century Basra: Sheikh Ibrahim al-Haidari's Book Revisited / Hala Fattah -- 7. Damascus and the Pilgrim Caravan / Abdul-Karim Rafeq -- 8. Aspects of Economy and Society in the Syrian Provinces: Aleppo in Transition, 1880-1925 / Peter Sluglett --

9. Representing Copts and Muhammadans: Empire, Nation, and Community in Egypt and India, 1880-1914 / C. A. Bayly -- 10. Izmir 1922: A Port City Unravels / Resat Kasaba -- 11. Negotiating Colonial Modernity and Cultural Difference: Indian Muslim Conceptions of Community and Nation, 1878-1914 / Ayesha Jalal -- 12. The Tangled Ends of an Empire and Its Sultan / Engin Deniz Akarli -- 13. Racial Readings of Empire: Britain, France, and Colonial Modernity in the Mediterranean and Asia / Susan Bayly -- 14. Alexandria: A Mediterranean Cosmopolitan Center of Cultural Production / Robin Ostle -- 15. Between Politics and Literature: Journals in Alexandria and Istanbul at the End of the Nineteenth Century / Elisabeth Kendall -- 16. Printing and Urban Islam in the Mediterranean World, 1890-1920 / Juan R. I. Cole -- 17. Space and Time on the Indian Ocean Rim: Theory and History / Sugata Bose.