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Description of  States of Cultivation: Imperial Transition and Scientific Agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean (Stanford Ottoman World Series: Critical Studies in Empire, Nature, and Knowledge)

The final decades of the Ottoman Empire and the period of the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon coincided with a critical period of transformation in agricultural technologies and administration. Chemical fertilizers and mechanized equipment inspired model farms while government officials and technocratic elites pursued new land tenure, credit-lending, and tax collection policies to maximize revenue. These policies transformed rural communities and environments and were central to projects of reform and colonial controlas well as to resistance of that control. Read more