The Evolution of Historical Writing on Jordan in English

Abstract

Within fifteen years of the creation of the state of Jordan, the first histories of the new country began to appear. Over the past century, three distinct phases of history writing can be discerned: subjective histories, written by British and Jordanian participants in the mandate state-building project; objective histories, written by researchers who were independent of the Anglo-Jordanian founders of the state; and revisionist historians who based their work on archival sources to challenge and extend the scope of earlier histories. Over the past quarter century, revisionist historians have come increasingly to rely on archival resources and previous research work in Jordan.