The story is a familiar one. In 1882, the British invaded Egypt to secure payment on the country’s crippling foreign debts and quash the movement for fiscal sovereignty and constitutional rule that had formed under the Egyptian military officer Ahmed ‘Urabi Pasha.
The common sense in the critical American academy has long been that the decades of occupation ... Show More
Yesterday
Zainab Saleh, "Political Undesirables: Citizenship, Denaturalization, and Reclamation in Iraq" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Political Undesirables: Citizenship, Denaturalization, and Reclamation in Iraq (Stanford UP, 2025) considers the legal making and unmaking of citizenship in Iraq, focusing on the mass denaturalization and deportation of Iraqi Jews in 1950–51 and Iraqis of Iranian origin in the ... Show More
44m 28s
Jan 9
Sean Mathews, "The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East" (Hurst, 2025)
Where does Greece belong? Many look at the ancient Greek ruins of Athens, and see the cradle of Western civilization. But much of Greece’s history actually looks eastward to the rest of the Mediterranean: to Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Palestine. In his book The New Byzantines: The ... Show More
45m 51s
Feb 2023
Business Secrets of the Pharaohs: Egypt’s economy, the military, and the IMF loan
This week on The New Arab Voice, we're casting a look over the Egyptian economy and its recent fiscal troubles.Earlier in January, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) signed off on a $3 billion loan for Egypt; the fourth loan the country had received since 2016. The loan was gr ... Show More
26 m
Dec 2020
Ancient Egypt & Geopolitics
One of the luxuries of living in Ancient Egypt was that you were surrounded by massive deserts, protecting you from people who wanted to cut your head off. Well, at some point between 1650 – 1550 BC (who knows really), the Kingdom is invaded by barbarian hill people. The occupati ... Show More
1h 38m
Apr 2021
Erik Grimmer-Solem, "Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
The First World War marked the end point of a process of German globalization that began in the 1870s, well before Germany acquired a colonial empire or extensive overseas commercial interests. Structured around the figures of five influential economists who shaped the German pol ... Show More
1h 11m
Dec 2023
Napoleon in Egypt (with Grey History Podcast)
In 1798, an army of soldiers and scientists invaded Egypt. At their head, the young general Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Expedition had an enormous impact on Egypt's political history, and Egyptology as a field of scholarly inquiry. Remarkable discoveries, and dedicated study, ... Show More
1h 46m
Jun 2023
Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and ... Show More
42m 30s