How has migration shaped Mediterranean history? And what role did conflicting temporalities and the politics of departure play in the age of decolonisation? Using a microhistorical approach, Migration at the End of Empire: Time and the Politics of Departure Between Italy and Egypt (Cambridge UP, 2024) explores the experiences of over 55,000 Italian subjects ... Show More
Jan 30
Najati Sidqi, "Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist: The Secret Life of Najati Sidqi" (U Texas Press, 2025)
In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, Sidqi concealed a critical component of his life from the world and his family. He was an underground activist for the Palestinian ... Show More
25m 54s
Jan 29
Yossef Rapoport, "Becoming Arab: The Formation of Arab Identity in the Medieval Middle East" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Today, much of the Middle East is “Arab”—an identity that now extends across North Africa and up through the Near East to Syria. Yet how did this region become Arab? How did this identity spread? Was it due to migration, or conquest? Historian Yossef Rapoport, in his book Becomi ... Show More
41m 38s
Jan 26
Adam Bursi, "Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Adam Bursi’s Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam (Edinburg University Press, 2024) uses writings by early Muslims to map a history of material objects, relics, and tombs of prophetic figures as they were conceptualized in the 8th and 9th centuries. The ... Show More
56m 59s
May 2024
Nasserism and the Egyptian Revolution of 1952
<p>Rudy, Andrew and Eric sit down to discuss Egypt from its origins as an independent polity under Mehmed Ali up to the Sadat years, with a focus on the Nasserist revolutionary period. We discuss the origins and aims of the 1952 coup and revolution, the relationship between commu ... Show More
1h 45m
Apr 2024
Rethinking Nasser: A New Look at One of the Arab World's Most Polarizing Figures — With Alex Rowell and Joshua Martin
<p>For Alex Rowell, the need to reassess the legacy of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser has only increased in the decades since the death of the hugely influential figure, and especially recently.</p>
<p>“If you just take a moment to look at the Arab Spring and the co ... Show More
36m 43s
Aug 2024
Nazis in Egypt and Spain's La Tomatina
A warning, this programme includes an account of antisemitic views and descriptions of violence.Egypt recruited thousands of Nazis after World War Two to bolster its security. We hear from Frank Gelli, who in 1964 met Hitler's former propagandist, Johann von Leers, in Cairo. Auth ... Show More
51m 9s
Aug 2017
Anthony Kaldellis, “Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade” (Oxford UP, 2017)
In the 10th century, a succession of Byzantine rulers reversed centuries of strategic policy by embarking on a series of campaigns that dramatically reshaped their empire. This effort and its consequences for the history of the region is the focus of Anthony Kaldellis‘s Streams o ... Show More
56m 57s
Feb 2025
Season 4, Episode 5: Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and historian Eugene Rogan, professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Oxford, as they delve into the complex history of the Arab world, from the Ottoman conquest in 1516 to today’s geopolitical crises of the modern Middle East. Throu ... Show More
52m 39s