The modern Middle East stands at the forefront of current events as well as the interest of the public at large and the academic world because of what has been coined as “the clash of civilisations.” This course is aimed to provide students a firm grounding in the region’s nineteenth-century past in order to contextualize some of today’s predicaments and alleviate preconceptions and misunderstandings. The course focuses on the history of the Ottoman (including the Balkans and the Arab provinces) and Qajar (Iran) empires through the prism of the ideas and debates of modernity, reform, revolution, colonialism and nationalism.