A “panoramic and thought-provoking” (The Guardian) history of the Ottoman dynasty, revealing a diverse empire that straddled East and West The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic, Asian antithesis of the Christian, European West. But the...

While for many years scholars and journalists have focused on the more obvious manifestations of political life in the Middle East, one major theme has been consistently neglected. This is Pan-Syrian nationalism--the dream of creating a Greater Syria out...

Debates on the relationship between Islam and the West rage on, from talk of clashing civilizations to political pacification, from ethical and historical perspectives to distrust, xenophobia and fear. Here Mohammad Salama argues that the events of 9/11...

We have grown accustomed to understanding world literature as a collection of national or linguistic traditions bound together in the universality of storytelling. Michael Allan challenges this way of thinking and argues instead that the disciplinary...

Emotion lies at the heart of all national movements, and Zionism is no exception. For those who identify as Zionist, the word connotes liberation and redemption, uniqueness and vulnerability. Yet for many, Zionism is a source of distaste if not disgust,...

Using colonial Algeria as the starting point of her analysis, Patricia Lorcin explores the manner in which ethnic categories and cultural distinctions are developed and used in society. She focuses on the colonial images of ""good"" Kabyle and ""bad""...

The 25,000 perfectly preserved papyri unearthed from the dry sands of Egypt in the past 100 years yield insights into the life of ancient Egypt that are unequalled for any other ancient civilization. Piecing together the stories and historical...

Self-determination, imported into the Middle East on the heels of World War I, held out the promise of democratic governance to the former territories of the Ottoman Empire. The new states that European Great Powers carved out of the multilingual,...

Who are the Arabs? When did people begin calling themselves Arabs? And what was the Arabs’ role in the rise of Islam? Investigating these core questions about Arab identity and history by marshalling the widest array of Arabic sources employed hitherto,...

Stories from Palestine profiles Palestinians engaged in creative and productive pursuits in their everyday lives in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Their narratives amplify perspectives and experiences of Palestinians exercising their own...

The Middle East is one of the world's most volatile regions. In recent years, from the optimism and then crushing disappointment of the Arab uprisings through the rise and fall of the Islamic State, it has presented key international security challenges...

A searing exploration of authoritarianism in the Middle East through the legacy of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s years in power in Cold War–era Egypt.Gamal Abdel Nasser, the larger-than-life Egyptian president who ruled for eighteen years between the coup d’état...

A spellbinding history of the hidden world below the Holy City—a saga of biblical treasures, intrepid explorers, and political upheaval“A sweeping tale of archaeological exploits and their cultural and political consequences told with a historian’s...

A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.“I cannot even begin to convey the clarity, the intensity, the power, the...

Illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to the founding of the State of Israel forms one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of Zionism and modern Jewish history. Bringing Jews from Europe to Palestine by land and by sea in defiance of...

The first English-language biography of the de facto ruler of the late Ottoman Empire and architect of the Armenian GenocideTalaat Pasha (1874–1921) led the Young Turks' single-party regime in the Ottoman Empire during World War I and is arguably a...

The Safavid dynasty originated as a fledgling apocalyptic mystical movement based in Iranian Azarbaijan, and grew into a large, cosmopolitan Irano-Islamic empire stretching from Baghdad to Herat. Here, Colin P. Mitchell examines how the Safavid state...

In the months following its initial release, Guantánamo: What the World Should Know has proved to be a disturbingly accurate account of the Bush administration's tangle with civil liberties and torture. Written by Michael Ratner (Center for...