If the history of the Middle East in the 20th century is a history of fundamental social changesand dislocations, then surely one important part of that story is the transformation that took placein the agrarian sector of many Middle Eastern societies. The politics of landownership and theprojects of land reform in the 20th century were indeed among the most ambitious of the statistprojects undertaken during what we can now look back on as the “age ofmodernization.” Like so many large-scale projects of social engineering, land reform in theMiddle East captured the optimism and idealism of modernization while producing some of itsmost brutal and unforeseen consequences.