The little-known history of public school teachers across the Arab world reveals their significant influence on the modern Middle East. Once regarded as elite members of society, teachers played crucial roles in governance and ideology formation during the Ottoman and British rule in the early to mid-twentieth century. Through archival research and oral histories, this work uncovers the pivotal contributions of educators in shaping contemporary politics. The narrative focuses on a select group of young Arab men and women who taught in regions that became Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel. These educators navigated provincial and later national borders for work and education, positioning themselves for mid- and high-level roles within government bureaucracies. Notably, over one-third of prime ministers in Iraq during the 1950s and 1960s, and in Jordan from the 1940s to the early 1970s, were former public school teachers. This trend shifted as independence, occupation, and mass education diminished the teaching profession's status. As the first comprehensive history of education in Britain's Middle Eastern Mandates, this transnational study reframes our understanding of teaching, the relationship between public education and nationalism, and the evolving politics of the interwar Middle East.
