Marketing views of modernity, evangelism and print specialization in the American mission press catalogs (1884-1896)

Abstract

Taking up an analysis of the materiality of the American Mission Press (AMP) bilingual catalogs printed from 1884 to 1896 in Ottoman Beirut, in this article I identify these booklets as publications that circulated among broad networks of books, journals and newspapers during the period of the Arab nahda. By examining these catalogs in terms of the wider historical significance of their materiality, specifically their organization, layout, typography and illustrations, in this essay I show how these booklets promoted the AMP and its mission's entangled messages in an increasingly competitive publishing industry. On the one hand, the catalogs highlighted the AMP's 'western' qualifications and strove to engage local readers' interests in 'modern' culture, science and technology. On the other hand, these works marketed the mission's universalist evangelical views. Thus, in this study I show how such ephemeral publications, when studied for their dynamic content, make evident nineteenth-century Arabic print commerce at work and also illustrate early examples of nascent advertising practices. © Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.