Episodios

  • Brendan Haug, "Garden of Egypt: Irrigation, Society, and the State in the Premodern Fayyūm" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

    Brendan Haug, "Garden of Egypt: Irrigation, Society, and the State in the Premodern Fayyūm" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
    May 6 2025
    Garden of Egypt: Irrigation, Society, and the State in the Premodern Fayyūm (University of Michigan Press, 2024) is the first environmental history of Egypt’s Fayyūm depression. The book examines human relationships with flowing water from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. Until the arrival of modern perennial irrigation in the nineteenth century, the Fayyūm was the only region of premodern Egypt to be irrigated by a network of artificial canals. By linking large numbers of rural communities together in a shared dependence on this public irrigation infrastructure, canalization introduced a radically new way of interacting with both the water of the Nile and fellow farmers in Egypt. Drawing on ancient Greek papyri, medieval Arabic literature, and modern comparative evidence, Garden of Egypt explores how the Nile’s water, local farmers, and state power continually reshaped this irrigated landscape over more than 13 centuries. Following human/water relationships through both space and time further helps to erode disciplinary boundaries and bring multiple periods of Egyptian history into contact with one another. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy chats with Brendan Haug about the relationship between people, water, and the environment in Egypt’s Fayyūm. Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and writer based in Boston. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, disability studies, and migration literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    59 m
  • Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
    May 3 2025
    A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate. From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy. In this powerful new history of the era, acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East and the Crusades Simon Mayall focuses on some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history: the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the assault on Vienna and the 'high-water mark' of Ottoman advance into Europe; culminating in the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe and the modern Middle East. The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate (Bloomsbury, 2024) offers a wide, sweeping narrative, encompassing the broad historical and religious context of this period, while focussing on some of the key, pivotal sieges and battles, and on the protagonists, political and military, who determined their conclusions and their consequences. Simon Mayall is a former soldier in the British Army, and an acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East, and of the Crusades. Much of his 40-year professional career was focussed on the Middle East, and he has strong family and academic interests in the region. His last appointments were as the British Government's Defence Senior Adviser for the Middle East, and the Prime Minister's Security Envoy to Iraq and the Kurdish Region. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 h y 12 m
  • The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History

    The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History
    Apr 13 2025
    Geographic labels are sometimes misnomers. The Dead Sea’s name is not, for the most part. Its high salinity levels kill most forms of life, barring a couple hardy microbes and algae—and even these are threatened by environmental change. Except the Dead Sea has been part of human history for millennia. Jericho, the world’s oldest city, sits nearby. It features prominently in the Bible. Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs, Europeans all interact with the Dead Sea. And it’s now a tourist hotspot, a source for resources extraction–and a political hotspot, shared between Jordan, Israel, and the contested area of the West Bank. Nir Arielli, professor of international history at the University of Leeds, covers this history in his new book The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History (Yale University Press, 2025). Nir is also the author of From Byron to bin Laden: A History of Foreign War Volunteers (Harvard University Press: 2018) and Fascist Italy and the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan: 2010). He has also written contemporary political commentary for the Globe Post, Haaretz, and the Conversation. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Dead Sea. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    41 m
  • Orit Rozin, "Emotions of Conflict, Israel 1949-1967" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Orit Rozin, "Emotions of Conflict, Israel 1949-1967" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Apr 7 2025
    Israel’s citizens have had to cope with the emotional challenges of the threats their country has faced during its first two decades. Emotions of Conflict, Israel 1949-1967 (Oxford UP, 2024) unpacks the history of citizens’ emotions—an analysis of the reports about how they felt and of the emotional regime—the emotional repertoire designed by political leaders and cultural agents wishing to mold the feelings of Israeli citizens. The perspective of the history of emotions leads to hitherto untapped and nuanced insights about the weaknesses and strengths of Israelis, and reveals new connections between identity, morality, state-sanctioned violence, politics, and law, along with a new understanding of the motivations behind policy makers’ decisions. Orit Rozin is Associate Professor in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. Eva Gurevich, PhD, is a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brandeis University. Her dissertation was titled, “Reconstituting Israel: The Impact of the Six-Day War on Political Thought in the Land of Israel Movement (Hatenuah Lemaan Eretz Yisrael Hashlemah)." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 h y 10 m
  • Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard, "Spanish National Identity, Colonial Power, and the Portrayal of Muslims and Jews During the Rif War (1909-27)" (Boydell & Brewer, 2021)

    Elisabeth Bolorinos Allard, "Spanish National Identity, Colonial Power, and the Portrayal of Muslims and Jews During the Rif War (1909-27)" (Boydell & Brewer, 2021)
    Apr 6 2025
    How were Moroccan Muslim and Jewish cultures depicted in Spanish literature, journalism, and photography during the Rif War and what did this portrayal reveal about conflicting visions of Spanish identity? Runner-up for the 2017-18 AHGBI-Spanish Embassy Publication Prize Spanish National Identity, Colonial Power, and the Portrayal of Muslims and Jews During the Rif War (1909-27) (Boydell & Brewer, 2021), examines how anxieties about colonial power and national identity are reflected in Spanish literature, journalism, and photography of Moroccan Muslim and Jewish cultures during the Spanish colonisation of Northern Morocco from 1909 to 1927. This understudied period, known as the Rif War, is highly significant because of its role in shaping the identities that came into conflict in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Furthermore, the book makes a key contribution to Spanish colonial studies by offering a comparative analysis of Spanish representations of the Iberian Peninsula's cultural and historical relationship with Moroccan Muslims and Jews in this context, showing how conflicting visions of Spanish identity are portrayed through and in relation to them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    49 m
  • Sinem Arcak Casale, "Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

    Sinem Arcak Casale, "Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
    Apr 1 2025
    When the Safavid dynasty, founded in 1501, built a state that championed Iranian identity and Twelver Shi’ism, it prompted the more established Ottoman Empire to align itself definitively with Sunni legalism. The political, religious, and military conflicts that arose have since been widely studied, but little attention has been paid to their diplomatic relationship. In Gifts in the Age of Empire: Ottoman-Safavid Cultural Exchange, 1500–1639 (University of Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Sinem Arcak Casale sets out to explore these two major Muslim empires through a surprising lens: gifts. Countless treasures—such as intricate carpets, gilded silver cups, and ivory-tusk knives—flowed from the Safavid to the Ottoman Empire throughout the sixteenth century. While only a handful now survive, records of these gifts exist in court chronicles, treasury records, poems, epistolary documents, ambassadorial reports, and travel narratives. Tracing this elaborate archive, Dr. Casale treats gifts as representative of the complicated Ottoman-Safavid coexistence, demonstrating how their rivalry was shaped as much by culture and aesthetics as it was by religious or military conflict. Gifts in the Age of Empire explores how gifts were no mere accessories to diplomacy but functioned as a mechanism of competitive interaction between these early modern Muslim courts. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    1 h y 11 m
  • Letizia Osti, "History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature" (I. B. Tauris, 2024)

    Letizia Osti, "History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature" (I. B. Tauris, 2024)
    Mar 31 2025
    Abu Bakr al-Suli was an Abbasid polymath and table companion, as well as a legendary chess player. He was perhaps best known for his work on poetry and chancery, which would have a long-lasting influence on Arabic literature. His decades of service at the court of at least three caliphs give him a unique perspective as an historian of his own time, although he is often valued as an observer rather than an interpreter of events for posterity. In History and Memory in the Abbasid Caliphate: Writing the Past in Medieval Arabic Literature (I. B. Tauris, 2024), Letizia Osti provides the first full-length English-language study devoted to al-Suli, illustrating how investigating the life, times and works of such a complex individual can serve as a fil rouge for tackling broader, contested concepts, such as biography, autobiography, court culture, and written culture. The result is an exploration of the ways in which the Abbasid court made sense of the past and, in general, of what 'historiography' means in a medieval Arabic context. Letizia Osti is Professor of Arabic Literature and Language at the University of Milan, where she has taught since 2007. She earned her PhD in Arabic Studies from the University of St. Andrews, and is a member of the School of Abbasid Studies and other scholarly societies. Her research has been published widely in journals such as the Journal of Abbasid Studies, the Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Literatures, and she is the co-author of the 2013 study Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court. Samuel Thrope is Curator of the Islam and Middle East Collection at the National Library of Israel. He earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2012. He is the translator of Iranian author Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s 1963 Israel travelogue The Israeli Republic (Restless Books, 2017) and, with Dr. Domenico Agostini, of the ancient Iranian Bundahišn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation (Oxford University Press, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    52 m
  • Yaron Ayalon, "Ottoman Jewry: Leadership, Charity, and Literacy" (Brill, 2024)

    Yaron Ayalon, "Ottoman Jewry: Leadership, Charity, and Literacy" (Brill, 2024)
    Mar 30 2025
    Those of us who have some background in Jewish history are taught that the Ottoman Empire encouraged Jews, particularly those of the Spanish and Portuguese Expulsions, to settle in Ottoman Lands. In Ottoman Jewry: Leadership, Charity, and Literacy (Brill, 2024), Professor Ayalon debunks what he calls that myth. The Ottomans, according to Yaron, were interested in stability - economic and otherwise. Minorities, with their additional taxes, would bring more financial benefits. Many were merchants who would pay higher taxes. With this premise, we discussed the world of the Ottoman Jews as one of creating community and society. There were Romaniot, Sephardim, Msta'ribun and some Ashkenazim who settled across these lands, and together they created strong communities with Rabbinic and lay leadership and a cultural heritage that can still be seen today in those communities who have survived and relocated around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies
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    44 m
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