In the postwar period, new Arab states in the Middle East emerged from a long cycle of colonial rule. For centuries the region had been dominated by the Ottoman Empire. After the First World War, France and Britain claimed protectorates in the former Ottoman territories of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Britain had already claimed Egypt as a protectorate in 1914, and France controlled Algeria. These new nations, along with other countries gaining independence from the southern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, embraced Arab socialism — a modernizing, secular, and nationalist project of nation building aimed at economic development, a strong military, and Pan-Arab unity that would deter imperial impulses from Europe or the superpowers. Arab socialism focused on modernization and state formation rather than ideological Marxism.

Arab socialism held particular significance for women in Middle Eastern societies. It cast aside religious restrictions on women’s fashions, education, occupations, and public activities. In countries like Egypt and Iraq, Western dress, the openness of education, and access to professions enjoyed by urban, typically affluent women symbolized an embrace of modernity, although senior posts in government, the professions, and business were still dominated by men.

In 1952 army officers overthrew Egypt’s monarchy and expelled the British military force that the king had allowed to occupy the country. The movement’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), built a nationalist regime aimed at eradicating the vestiges of European colonialism (such as British and French control of the Suez Canal), as well as creating an economic transformation through land redistribution and state support for industrialization. Applying the principles of Arab socialism, Nasser pursued the secularization of Egyptian society and equal opportunity for women and men, and created an extensive social welfare network.

Nasser’s National Charter called for the nationalization of railroads, mines, ports, airports, dams, banks, utilities, insurance companies, and heavy industries. In the countryside the size of landholdings was limited and large estates broken up. As Nasser declared, “When we started this revolution, we wanted to put an end to exploitation. Hence our struggle to put capital at the service of man, and to put land at the service of man, instead of leaving man at the service of the feudalist who owns the land.” His main development goal was constructing the Aswan Dam on the Nile River, which generated electricity for industrialization in northern Egypt while allowing southern Egypt to control seasonal flooding of the river to increase agricultural production.7

In 1956 Nasser took a symbolic and strategic step toward nationalizing Egypt’s economy when he ordered the army to take control of the Suez Canal, still held by Britain and France. A coalition of British, French, and Israeli forces invaded to retake the canal. The Soviet Union offered support to Egypt. To prevent Soviet intervention and a Soviet-Egyptian alliance, the U.S. negotiated a cease-fire that granted Egypt control of the canal against the wishes of the British and French. Alongside control of the canal, Nasser’s other main economic accomplishment was the Aswan Dam, which by 1970 had created a vast reservoir bearing his name, Lake Nasser. He negotiated the funding and technical expertise for building the dam with both the United States and the Soviet Union, eventually settling on Soviet aid. The Suez crisis and the construction of the Aswan Dam were examples of a nationalist leader like Nasser successfully playing the superpowers against each other.

Nationalist military officers in other Arab countries emulated Nasser’s public political profile and socialist developmental projects. In countries like Syria and Iraq, these nationalists formed the Pan-Arab socialist Ba’ath Party. For members of national Ba’ath parties, Nasser’s Egypt served as a model for developing a strong state governed by a single ruling party that channeled nationalist and development aspirations. Syria briefly merged with Egypt from 1958 until 1961, forming the United Arab Republic. Ba’athist military officers who resented Nasser’s control of Syria revolted against Egypt and established a new national Syrian government dominated by the Ba’ath Party. In Iraq the Ba’ath Party formed part of the military movement that in 1958 overthrew the British-backed monarchy, leading to a long reign by Ba’athist leaders that ended when a U.S. military invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.