George Antonius - Definition and Overview

George Antonius (1891-1941) was the first historian of Arab nationalism. Born of Lebanese-Egyptian parentage, he served in the British mandate government of Palestine. His seminal 1938 book The Arab Awakening was written as Palestine was slipping from Arab control.

Antonius traced Arab nationalism to the reign of Mehmet Ali Pasha in Egypt. He argued that Arab nationalism was a product of the West, especially of Protestant missionaries from Britain and the United States. He saw the role of the American University of Beirut (originally the Syrian Protestant College) as central to this development.

While he is viewed as the founder of Arab nationalist history, modern historians have many problems with Antonius' work and most of his conclusions have today been rejected by revisionist historians.

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