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Abstract
Global cities are almost by definition somewhat detached from their geographical hinterlands. Cosmopolitan and modern, they are open to external influences from other cultures and from overseas trade. But they are also vulnerable to the rise of nationalism in the country which surrounds them, as is shown by the fate of three famous cities of the Levant, Alexandria, Smyrna and Beirut. They were multicultural trading cities, linking the economies of Europe and Asia, “windows on the world”, in contrast to inland capitals like Cairo Ankara and Damascus. New global cities like London, Hong Kong and Dubai also have hybrid and polyglot inhabitants, like Levantine cities of bygone days. But they will need support if their cosmopolitanism is to prevail over nationalism.
Notes
1 Down There on a Visit, 1962, p. 72.
2 Mohamed Afifi, La Méditerranée egyptienne, 2000, p. 3.
3 Daniel A. Bell and Avner de-Shalit, The Spirit of Cities, Princeton 2011, p. 58.
4 Philip Mansel, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, 2010, pp. 64–65.
5 Mansel, Levant, pp. 68–69.
6 Laurence Grafftey-Smith, Bright Levant. An autobiography, 1970, p. 46.
7 Gudrun Kramer, The Jews in Modern Egypt 1914–1952, 1989, p. 194. These sentiments have been repeated to me in interviews by Molly Tuby and Solomon Greene.
8 Robert Ilbert, Alexandrie 1830–1930, 2 vols Cairo 1996, I, 361.
9 Nathan J. Brown, ‘The Precarious Life and Slow Death of the Mixed Courts of Egypt’, International Journal of Middle Eastern History, 25, 1993, p. 46.
10 Mediterraneans, 1996, pp. 128–129, interview of 1996.
11 Daniel Rondeau, Alexandrie, 1997, p. 29.
12 Mansel, Levant, p. 91.
13 Charles Royle, The Egyptian Campaigns 1882–1885, 1900 ed. pp. 95–97.
14 A. Hulme-Beaman, Twenty Years in the Near East (London, 1898), p. 46.
15 Ilbert, Alexandrie, I, 469n.
16 See Philip Mansel, Aleppo: from World City to Battle-field, forthcoming.
17 Mansel, Levant, pp. 355–356.
18 Sami Zubaida, ‘Middle Eastern Jews in London’, The Middle East in London, June 2013, p. 20.
19 Evening Standard, 11 December 2012, p. 10.
20 Evening Standard, 15 May 2013, p. 5.
21 International herald Tribune, 29 September 2013, p. 7.
22 Tom Phillips, ‘Why Shanghai is so special’, The Telegraph, 5 December 2013, p. 27.
23 International Herald Tribune, 6 December 2012, 22 April 2013.
24 Financial Times, 23 March 2013, p. 15.
25 Camille Jullian, Histoire de Bordeaux, 2 vols 1899, II, 78.