In the postwar period, new Arab states in the Middle East emerged from long legacies of colonial rule. These new nations 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 dress, 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.

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, 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 were limited and large estates broken up.

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 United States negotiated a cease-fire that granted Egypt control of the Suez Canal against the wishes of the British and French governments. Alongside control of the canal, Nasser’s other main economic goal was the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam — the Aswan Dam — on the Nile River, which would provide electricity and control flooding to intensify agriculture. Nasser negotiated the funding and technical expertise for building the damn 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. 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.