Peter Hill is a Junior Research Fellow in Oriental Studies at Christ Church, University of Oxford. An intellectual and cultural historian of the Arab world in the long nineteenth century, he has lived and studied in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. He has published articles in journals including Past & Present, the Journal of Arabic Literature and Intellectual History Review.

Introduction; 1. Who made the Nahda?; 2. The discourse of civilization; 3. A place in the world; 4. An Arab utopian; Conclusions.