Daphna Sharfman's book Jerusalem in the Second World War (Routledge, 2024) is the first to present the unique story of the city of Jerusalem during the events of the Second World War and how it played a unique role in both the military and civilian aspects of the war.
Whilst Jerusalem is usually known for topics such as religion, archaeology, or the politics ... Show More
Yesterday
Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. And he died in 1975, the start of the Lebanese Civil War. But who was Imad Nuwayhid? Was he a leftist intellectual? A self-intereste ... Show More
1h 11m
May 1
Mostafa Hussein, "Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British Palestine" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In the decades before the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, native and immigrant Jews in Palestine mediated between Jewish and Arab cultures while navigating their evolving identities as settler colonists. Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in ... Show More
1h 32m
Apr 23
Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we have for how slavery worked in practice comes from the Cairo Geniza, a cache of hundreds of thousands of discarded documents from ... Show More
47m 11s
Nov 2023
Yemen: From Civil War to World War?
The state of Yemen in 2023 is precarious. After the Arab Spring revolution descended into civil war, the Houthis have cemented their power over large swathes of Northern Yemen, while the traditional ruling parties have fractured and, in many cases, disintegrated. In this final ep ... Show More
1h 6m
Jul 2018
Guy Laron, “The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East” (Yale UP, 2017)
The title of Guy Laron’s The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East (Yale University Press, 2017) says it all. As Laron notes in this interview, the fact that the war led to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is an accepted interpretation of the war’s meaning. However, th ... Show More
55m 43s
Nov 2023
The Arab- Israeli War: Yom Kippur War 1973
<p>Also known as the October War and the Ramadan War, this conflict was initiated by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973, as a surprise attack on Israel during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur and the Muslim month of Ramadan. It was motivated by a desire among Arab states to rega ... Show More
39m 29s