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PODCAST

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

society & culture

All Episodes

38:54

Emily Sibley, "The Poetics of Incivility: Satire and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/20

The Poetics of Incivility: Satire and Subversion in Modern Arab Culture(Cornell UP, 2026)explores impolite modes of expression—satire, crude humor, and rudeness—as a critical lens for both aesthetic innovation and sociopolitical critique.In the Arab world—from Cairo's Tahrir Square and the thoroughfares of Beirut to war-torn Gaza—political demands have been framed by satirical cartoons and graffiti or in subversive poetry and song. Emily Sibley shows that these forms of resistance are not new to

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42:09

Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, "Tel Rehov: A...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/17

This interview with Professor Amihai Mazar was conducted by Željko Stanojević for the New Books Network. The conversation focuses onTel Reḥov: A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valley, especially Volume V, where the report turns from architecture and pottery to smaller objects and scientific evidence that help reconstruct life at the site.Amihai Mazar is a leading archaeologist of ancient Israel. His research examines the Bronze and Iron Ages, archaeology and biblical history, ancient

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45:39

Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri eds.,...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/17

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) talks with Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri, the editors ofPalestine in Transition: Frank Scholten's Visual Archive of the British Mandate Period. They discuss who Frank Scholten was, the breadth and depth of the images he took in Palestine, and the archival holdings themselves. You can browse Frank Scholten’s imageshere. Follow theCity Sarha Instagramaccount to be updated on when the app exploring Jerusalem’s modern cultural history will

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53:55

Zvi Yehuda and Marian Scheuer Sofaer, "The Expulsion...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/15

In this episode we spoke with Marian Scheuer Sofaer, Esquire, and Dr. Einav Yehuda-Shnaidman about The Expulsion of Jews from Iraq, 20th Century: The Agonies of Redemption (Brill, 2024), by Dr. Zvi Yehuda, and translated by Sofaer.Dr. Zvi Yehuda, born in Iraq in 1936, immigrated to Israel as a teenager during Operation Ezra and Nehemiah and went on to complete a PhD in History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, later founding and heading the research institute at the Babylonian Jewry

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100:08

Hossam el-Hamalawy, "Counterrevolution in Egypt:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/14

Counterrevolution in Egypt: Sisi's New Republic(Verso Books, 2026)is a rare and comprehensive examination of the structures, hierarchies, and methods of the military, police, and intelligence agencies. Drawing on meticulous research, it reveals the strategies deployed to suppress the revolutionary wave, from propaganda and surveillance to mass arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings. El-Hamalawy traces the power dynamics within these institutions to show how their uneasy unity was both a

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46:11

Younus Y. Mirza, "The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/12

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been historically revered throughout the Islamic tradition. This began already in the Qur'an, where she is called by the name "Maryam."The Islamic Mary: Maryam Through the Centuries(Fortress Press, 2025)examines the varied appearances of Maryam in different Islamic cultural and theological contexts. The chapters in this history extend from Maryam's scriptural mentions in the Qur'an and the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, her appearances in medieval debates regarding

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61:30

Daniel Majchrowicz, "A Journey to Mecca and London:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/10

Descended from Mughal nobility, Akhtar al-Nisa Begum Nawab Sarbuland Jung grew up in Hyderabad in southern India, where she lived a quiet, private, and privileged life at the heart of the state's royal court. In 1896, at the age of 20, she married Nawab Muhammad Hamidullah Khan Sarbuland Jung, a prominent lawyer and the scion of a leading Muslimreformist movement. In 1909, the wealthy couple embarked on a four-month journey through the Middle East and Europe, performing the hajj in Mecca and

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65:18

Gianluca Fantoni, "Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers: A...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/07

Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers: A History of the Jewish Brigade(McGill-Queen's University Press, 2026)tellsthe compelling story of the Jewish Brigade Infantry Group (JBG), a five-thousand-strong military unit, recruited primarily from the Jewish population of Palestine, and the only exclusively Jewish military unit to fight under the British flag during the Second World War. Gianluca Fantoni reconstructs the military and human experience of the brigade in Italy and investigates its enduring

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70:34

Muslims and the Minority Question across the Indian...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/05

In this conversation, we are entering an Indian Ocean world connected by steamships, telegraphs, pilgrimage routes, and print. From Bombay and the Gulf to Cairo and Mecca—and onward to Moscow and Geneva—merchants, scholars, activists, and political exiles debated a question that still feels urgent: how can different communities live together without being reduced to permanent majorities and minorities? Bombay sits near the center of our story. Under British rule, it was a major imperial

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53:35

Paulina Banas, "Visualizing Egypt: European Travel,...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/08/02

Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East. In her debut book,Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth

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65:22

Murat C. Yildiz, "The Ottoman World of Sports:...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/31

The history of sports in Turkey is deeply contested. Over the decades, journalists, pundits, non-professional historians, sports scholars, and everyday people have offered competing narratives about the origins of modern sports in the late Ottoman Empire. In The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul(University of Texas Press, 2026), Murat Cihan Yıldıztells the story of how Istanbul’s Muslims, Christians, and Jews—gymnastics teachers,

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33:29

Mikhail Pelevin, "Love, Honour and God: Pashto...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/31

In this episode of New Books Network, I speak with Mikhail Pelevin about his book Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times (Iran and the Caucasus Monographs, vol. 5, Brill, 2025). Love, Honour and God is a survey of three centuries of Pashto literary and educational writing, from roughly 1530 to 1830, the period Pelevin identifies as classical in the history of Pashto letters. Moving from the earliest, now-lost administrative "Daftar" of Shaykh Mali through the sectarian

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41:40

Lisa Blaydes and Samuel Helfont eds., "Ba‘thist Iraq...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/29

The opening of Iraq's Ba'thParty archives revolutionized the study of Iraqi politics and history, offering scholars unprecedented access to the inner workings of one of the world's most impenetrable autocracies. Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities (Stanford University Press, 2026) edited by Dr. Lisa Blaydes and Dr. Samuel Helfont brings together leading scholars to take stock of what we have learned from over a decade of research using the Ba'thist

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45:42

Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food,...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/25

The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of the nineteenth century, which depended on its current and former colonies for food and raw materials, the United States produced vast agricultural surpluses. During the 1950s, an era of decolonization and rising Cold War

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50:26

Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/23

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War.But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local

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77:14

Martin Shaw, "The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/22

The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the center of world politics, with sharp conflicts between the protesters and lawyers who invoke it and the governments and media that deny it.The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza (Agenda Publishing, 2025),by the foremost sociological theorist of genocide,Martin Shaw,defends the idea against thinkers who have questioned it, and argues that it is essential to the understanding of mass

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48:51

Suzy Hansen, "From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/21

From Suzy Hansen, whose previous book,Notes on a Foreign Country, was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize, From Life Itself:Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2026) is a story for a world out of joint. An absorbing account of one neighborhood in Istanbul that has seen profound change, it offers lessons for all of us who feel the pressure of the disorienting global forces remaking our lives.Karagümrük, a neighborhood once dominated by Ottoman-era

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72:19

Massoud Amin, "Both Your Houses: Iran, America, and...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/15

InBoth Your Houses: Iran, America, and the Wages of Unchecked Power(Wisdom Editions, 2026), Massoud Amin confronts the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States, and the civilians caught beneath it. Writing from a dual vantage as an Iranian-born American trained to see how systems break, Amin traces the chain that led to catastrophe. Iran's thwarted democracies. The 1953 coup. The architecture of sanctions was designed to inflict economic pain rather than produce diplomacy—the destruction of

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58:36

Thomas Smith, "The Fifth Crusade: A History of the...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/14

In 1217, the crusader states were in a highly fragile condition. The Fourth Crusade had failed, and Jerusalem had not been recovered. The crusaders now set their sights on Egypt. If the breadbasket of the Mediterranean could be conquered, long-term Christian control of the Holy Land could be ensured. Led by the rulers of Hungary and Austria, and backed by the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, the Fifth Crusade was launched. In The Fifth Crusade: A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer

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49:47

Sara Farhan, "Medical Education and the Making of...

New Books in Middle Eastern Studies ·

2026/07/12

Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959 (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) by Dr. Sara Farhan offers a rigorous social and cultural history of the formation of medical professionals in modern Iraq and their role in shaping public health institutions. Tracing developments from late Ottoman medical reforms to the establishment of the Medical College of Mosul, the book examines the institutionalization of medical education as a critical element of the social transformation

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364 results

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