Albert Habib Hourani, CBE (Arabic: ألبرت حبيب حوراني Albart Ḥabīb Ḥūrānī; 31 March 1915 – 17 January 1993) was a Lebanese British historian, specialising in the history of the Middle East and Middle Eastern studies.
Born~Died Mar 31, 1915 ~ Jan 17, 1993Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 6:04 PM
Hourani was born in Manchester, England, the son of Soumaya Rassi and Fadlo Hourani,1 immigrants from Marjeyoun in what is now South Lebanon (see Lebanese diaspora). Fadlo had studied at the Syrian Protestant College and settled in Manchester as a cotton merchant.2 Albert's brothers were George Hourani, philosopher, historian, and classicist, and Cecil Hourani, economic adviser to President of TunisiaHabib Bourguiba. His family had converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to Scottish Presbyterianism and his father became an elder of the local church in Manchester. Hourani himself, in turn, converted to Catholicism in adulthood. Fadlo had extensive business contacts with the Levantine community both in Manchester and in the Ottoman Empire, and Cecil Hourani commented on the household's mixed Anglo-Levantine culture:
... to my earliest memories in Manchester there were two faces: the one Near Eastern, Lebanese, full of poetry, politics, and business; the other partly Scottish Presbyterian, full of Sunday church-going and Sunday school, partly English through an English nanny and a succession of English and Irish cooks and maids.3
This page is based on “Albert Hourani” from English Wikipedia, (r1372392967) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
After the war's end, he worked at the Arab Office in Jerusalem and London, where he helped prepare the Arab case for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.8 Although he developed a liberal Arab nationalist sensibility as his education about the Middle East deepened, Hourani described himself as originally an unquestioning English liberal.9
He began his academic career, which would occupy the rest of his life, in 1948, teaching at Magdalen College, St. Antony's College (where he created and directed the college's Middle East Centre), the American University of Beirut, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He ended his academic career as Fellow of St. Antony's 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 LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, MIT and the University of Haifa, among others. He was appointed CBE in the 1980 Birthday Honours.10
Influence on Middle Eastern studies
According to historian Rashid Khalidi (quoted from within a series of essays gathered originally for a conference in Hourani's honor), "Hourani's students, and their students, have over the last few decades effectively populated and then produced the core of the field of modern Middle East history in North America and Europe, and parts of the Middle East and other regions as well (2016)".6
Hourani's most popular work is A History of the Arab Peoples (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 19th century, and the opening of the Arab world to modern European culture; it remains one of the major works on this subject. Syria and Lebanon. A Political Essay (1946) and Minorities in the Arab World (1947) are other major works. He also wrote extensive works on the orientalist 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.
In 1955 Hourani married Christine Mary Odile Wegg-Prosser (1914–2003), while teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. He died in Oxford in 1993 at the age of 77. His widow died in 2003 at the age of 89. Both are buried in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford.
Hourani, Albert Habib; Talmon, Jacob Leib (1968). Israel and the Arabs. J.B. Holters.
Sources
"The Case against a Jewish State in Palestine: Albert Hourani's Statement to the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry of 1946". Journal of Palestine Studies. 35 (1): 80–90. Autumn 2005. doi:10.1525/jps.2005.35.1.80. eISSN1533-8614. ISSN0377-919X.
Al-Sudairi, Abdulaziz A. A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani. London: I.B. Tauris.
Khalidi, Walid (2005). "On Albert Hourani, the Arab Office, and the Anglo-American Committee of 1946". Journal of Palestine Studies. 35 (1): 60–79. doi:10.1525/jps.2005.35.1.60.
Nachmani, Amikam (1997). "A Rare Testimony: Albert Hourani and the Anglo-American Committee, 1946". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Owen, Roger (1997). "Albert Hourani the Historian". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Piterberg, Gaby (1997). "Albert Hourani and Orientalism". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Arabic thought beyond the liberal age : towards an intellectual history of the Nahda. Jens Hanssen, Max Weiss. Cambridge, United Kingdom. 2016. p. 378. ISBN978-1-316-65774-4. OCLC970815349. ↩↩2↩3
Al-Sudairi, Abdulaziz (1991). A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani. I.B.Tauris. p. 21. ↩
Joel Beinin, 'Arab Liberal Intellectuals and the Partition of Palestine', in Arie M. Dubnov and Laura Robson, eds, Partitions : A Transnational History of Twentieth-Century Territorial Separatism, Stanford University Press, 2019, pp.203-223 ↩
Allen, Lori (2021). A history of false hope : investigative commissions in Palestine. Stanford University Press. ↩
Hourani was born in Manchester, England, the son of Soumaya Rassi and Fadlo Hourani,1 immigrants from Marjeyoun in what is now South Lebanon (see Lebanese diaspora). Fadlo had studied at the Syrian Protestant College and settled in Manchester as a cotton merchant.2 Albert's brothers were George Hourani, philosopher, historian, and classicist, and Cecil Hourani, economic adviser to President of TunisiaHabib Bourguiba. His family had converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to Scottish Presbyterianism and his father became an elder of the local church in Manchester. Hourani himself, in turn, converted to Catholicism in adulthood. Fadlo had extensive business contacts with the Levantine community both in Manchester and in the Ottoman Empire, and Cecil Hourani commented on the household's mixed Anglo-Levantine culture:
... to my earliest memories in Manchester there were two faces: the one Near Eastern, Lebanese, full of poetry, politics, and business; the other partly Scottish Presbyterian, full of Sunday church-going and Sunday school, partly English through an English nanny and a succession of English and Irish cooks and maids.
After the war's end, he worked at the Arab Office in Jerusalem and London, where he helped prepare the Arab case for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.8 Although he developed a liberal Arab nationalist sensibility as his education about the Middle East deepened, Hourani described himself as originally an unquestioning English liberal.9
He began his academic career, which would occupy the rest of his life, in 1948, teaching at Magdalen College, St. Antony's College (where he created and directed the college's Middle East Centre), the American University of Beirut, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard. He ended his academic career as Fellow of St. Antony's 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 LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, MIT and the University of Haifa, among others. He was appointed CBE in the 1980 Birthday Honours.10
Influence on Middle Eastern studies
According to historian Rashid Khalidi (quoted from within a series of essays gathered originally for a conference in Hourani's honor), "Hourani's students, and their students, have over the last few decades effectively populated and then produced the core of the field of modern Middle East history in North America and Europe, and parts of the Middle East and other regions as well (2016)".6
Hourani's most popular work is A History of the Arab Peoples (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 19th century, and the opening of the Arab world to modern European culture; it remains one of the major works on this subject. Syria and Lebanon. A Political Essay (1946) and Minorities in the Arab World (1947) are other major works. He also wrote extensive works on the orientalist 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.
In 1955 Hourani married Christine Mary Odile Wegg-Prosser (1914–2003), while teaching at Magdalen College, Oxford. He died in Oxford in 1993 at the age of 77. His widow died in 2003 at the age of 89. Both are buried in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford.
Hourani, Albert Habib; Talmon, Jacob Leib (1968). Israel and the Arabs. J.B. Holters.
Sources
"The Case against a Jewish State in Palestine: Albert Hourani's Statement to the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry of 1946". Journal of Palestine Studies. 35 (1): 80–90. Autumn 2005. doi:10.1525/jps.2005.35.1.80. eISSN1533-8614. ISSN0377-919X.
Al-Sudairi, Abdulaziz A. A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani. London: I.B. Tauris.
Khalidi, Walid (2005). "On Albert Hourani, the Arab Office, and the Anglo-American Committee of 1946". Journal of Palestine Studies. 35 (1): 60–79. doi:10.1525/jps.2005.35.1.60.
Nachmani, Amikam (1997). "A Rare Testimony: Albert Hourani and the Anglo-American Committee, 1946". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Owen, Roger (1997). "Albert Hourani the Historian". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Piterberg, Gaby (1997). "Albert Hourani and Orientalism". In Pappé, Ilan; Ma'oz, Moshe (eds.). Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within. I.B Tauris. ISBN9781860640124.
Arabic thought beyond the liberal age : towards an intellectual history of the Nahda. Jens Hanssen, Max Weiss. Cambridge, United Kingdom. 2016. p. 378. ISBN978-1-316-65774-4. OCLC970815349. ↩↩2↩3
Al-Sudairi, Abdulaziz (1991). A Vision of the Middle East: An Intellectual Biography of Albert Hourani. I.B.Tauris. p. 21. ↩
Joel Beinin, 'Arab Liberal Intellectuals and the Partition of Palestine', in Arie M. Dubnov and Laura Robson, eds, Partitions : A Transnational History of Twentieth-Century Territorial Separatism, Stanford University Press, 2019, pp.203-223 ↩
Allen, Lori (2021). A history of false hope : investigative commissions in Palestine. Stanford University Press. ↩