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International education served a dual function in the American-Iranian relationship during the thirty-seven-year reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. On the one hand, education was the most important component to the shah's project of authoritarian development - a model of rapid socio-economic development predicated on the premise that anti-communist statism, a less vibrant political milieu, and a more forceful role for the security forces would maintain domestic stability, guarantee the westward flow of Iranian oil, and keep Iran firmly entrenched in the American camp in the cold war competition. Iranian alumni of American universities were elected to the majlis, entered the shah's bureaucracy, staffed the Plan Organization, worked in the financial sector, served in the armed forces, joined university faculties, and assumed the premiership. On the other hand, the influx of Iranian students to American campuses spawned debates outside of traditional foreign policymaking communities about international relations, human rights, and development that were quite different from those that took place in the halls of power in Washington or Tehran. What emerged was a coalition of progressive American and Iranian internationalists that rejected the shah's authoritarian model of development, challenged the American assumptions that propelled U.S. ascendance in the Persian Gulf region, and called for the realization of civil and political rights in Iran. These educational networks made the American-Iranian relationship at once the most intimate and volatile of the cold war era. In the end, I argue that international education produced more friction than harmony as proponents of authoritarian development and progressive internationalists negotiated the acceptable boundaries for the exercise of state power. / History

Résumé : Ni une narration chronologique, ni une exploration détaillée d'un ou de quelques événements, cette thèse aborde l'ensemble de la période mandataire d'un angle particulier, celui de la réponse française au nationalisme arabe en Syrie telle que révélée dans les archives et autres sources françaises. Elle s'intéresse aux mécanismes de pensée par lesquels une pionnière de l'idée nationale s'est trouvée à combattre cette idée chez un autre peuple. Le Mandat accordé par la Société des nations a pour but déclaré d'accompagner les sociétés nouvellement libérées de l'occupation ottomane sur le chemin de la maturité politique complète et, donc, de l'indépendance. Utilisant ce cadre juridique qu'elle a elle-même mis en place de concert avec la Grande-Bretagne et d'autres vainqueurs de la Première Guerre mondiale, la France occupe la Syrie et le Liban entre 1920 et 1946 et administre jusqu'en 1943 leur vie politique, leurs finances et leur économie. Or, ne ré-pondant ni au texte ni à l'esprit du Mandat, ses agissements soulèvent des interrogations sur les vrais objectifs. Cette thèse propose une réponse en montrant que le but ultime de la France est d'assurer une position dominante pérenne au Levant, militairement, culturellement et politiquement, et qu'elle conçoit le Mandat comme une mainmise coloniale, adoucie, peut-être, mais aucunement différente dans son essence des autres conquêtes coloniales entreprises dès le XIXe siècle. Un obstacle majeur se dresse toutefois contre l'ambition française : le nationalisme des Syriens. La thèse fait état des méthodes utilisées pour mettre au pas le mouvement nationaliste. La France qualifie la Syrie d'agglomération de communautés, une antithèse du concept de nation. Elle entame son Mandat par une division du pays en plusieurs petits États, une division qu'elle finit par abandonner en 1936 au prix de luttes politiques et de révoltes sanglantes, sans toutefois renoncer à sa perception irrémédiablement communautariste de la population syrienne. En plus de la division politique, les manipulations de l'économie, des finances et des classes sociales font partie de l'arsenal exploré dans la thèse, de même que les méthodes militaires et policières ininterrompues tout au long du Mandat, quoique avec une intensité variable. La thèse attribue l'échec, que l'on constate inévitable, de la France à réaliser aucune de ses ambitions à des idées préconçues sur la région, au refus de prendre en compte les réalités et à une intransigeance condescendante dans les relations avec les Syriens. / Abstract: This thesis is neither a chronological narration, nor a detailed exploration of events. It examines the French response to Arab nationalism in Syria during the entire Mandate period as revealed in the archives and other French sources. A thorough look is given to the mechanisms of thought by which a pioneering country of the national idea fights this very idea embraced by another population. The Mandate granted by the League of Nations has the stated aim of guiding populations that are newly liberated from Ottoman occupation on the path of full political maturity and, therefore, independence. Set up in concert with Great Britain and other victors of the First World War, this legal framework was used by France to occupy Syria and Lebanon militarily between 1920 and 1946 and, until 1943, to administer their political life, as well as their finances and economy. However, observing neither the letter nor the spirit of the Mandate, her actions cannot but raise questions about the real objectives. This thesis proposes an answer. It shows that France's purpose is to ensure in the Levant a lasting dominant position, militarily, culturally and politically, and that she perceives the Mandate as a license for a colonial grip, similar at its base – but not in its form – to other colonial conquests undertaken since the 19th century. However, the nationalism of the Syrians stands as a major obstacle against the French ambition. The thesis describes the methods used to bring the nationalist movement to heel. France perceives Syria as an agglomeration of communities, an antithesis of the concept of nation, and she began the Mandate by dividing the country into several small states. The division ends in 1936 at the cost of political struggles and bloody revolts, although France never renounced her communitarian perception of the Syrian population. In addition to the political division, the thesis explores the manipulations of the economy, finances and social classes, as well as the military and police methods exercised through-out the Mandate, albeit with a varying density. The thesis attributes France's inevitable failure to realize any of its ambitions to her rigid, preconceived, perception of the region with a refusal to adapt it to the realities, and to a condescending intransigence in relations with the Syrians.

This dissertation is a study of the Futūḥ Miṣr (Conquest of Egypt) of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/871), the earliest extant Arabic history of Egypt. Its primary aim is not to assess whether its information is 'authentic' - i.e. corresponding to an objective historical reality - though my findings are of relevance for those engaged in debates over authenticity. My goal instead is to explore the ideas about the past which are conveyed by this particular conglomeration of historical information and to propose methods through which we can expose and analyse different layers and types of authorial activity within a multi-vocal text like Futūḥ Miṣr. Ultimately, I use this analysis as the basis of a case study suggesting how we might more effectively historicise the generation and transmission of historical ideas in the early Islamic period. Part I of the thesis consists of three chapters which explore Futūḥ Miṣr as a whole, literary text which can be understood as an instantiation of the historical worldview of its composer. Part II of the thesis contains three chapters which each illuminate features of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam's historical practice which are important prerequisites for the stratigraphic reading of Futūḥ Miṣr performed in Part III. Part III of the thesis uses the understanding of Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam's authorial techniques developed in Part II to expose the earlier packages of historical information which underpin Futūḥ Miṣr. These final three chapters demonstrate how Ibn 'Abd al-Ḥakam reinvested these pre-existing narratives with meaning at a micro-level - by interjecting commentary and accounts from other sources - and at a macro-level - by integrating them into the larger narrative structure of Futūḥ Miṣr. In sum, this thesis is the first systematic study of the sources, structure, and authorship of an early Arabic history, which both tests and expands our current understanding of the dynamics of early Islamic historical writing, and sheds light on numerous aspects of the changing uses of the past among the Muslim scholars of Umayyad and 'Abbāsid Egypt.

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