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
Nov 22
Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025)
Faisal Devji's Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale UP, 2025) is a compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor. Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began ... Show More
1h 4m
Nov 21
Killian Clarke, "Return of Tyranny: Why Counterrevolutions Emerge and Succeed" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Why do some revolutions fail and succumb to counterrevolutions, whereas others go on to establish durable rule?
Marshalling original data on counterrevolutions worldwide since 1900 and new evidence from the reversal of Egypt's 2011 revolution, in Return of Tyranny: Why Counterre ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 14
Basit Kareem Iqbal, "The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Basit Kareem Iqbal's new book The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution (Fordham UP, 2025) uses ethnographic scenes from Jordan and Canada to contextualize the role of Muslim charities and community organizations that support displaced refugees from t ... Show More
1h 16m
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 39m
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