This volume presents twelve detailed case studies of the press from the Ottoman Empire and the post-Ottoman Arab world including North Africa in the period before independence (c.1850-1950). It charts the emergence of this important medium, its practitioners and its function as a forum and agent in political, social and cultural life in the Middle East and central to an understanding of the development of free speech, civil society, political life and cultural expression. Examining both local and foreign language publications the studies engage with themes such as the reading public, the representation of gender and class, the articulation of national, community and dissident voices in the press and its relationship with political power. The volume also provides a collective exploration of the profile of the practitioners of journalism from political activists and amateurs to the later emergence of the professional journalist in the Middle East. In taking up this focus, the collection argues that the press is both a vector and an agent of history that facilitates critical entrée into the complex processes of political, social and cultural transformation that the region was undergoing during this formative period.