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
Aug 2023
Lucia Carminati. "Seeking Bread and Fortune in Port Said: Labor Migration and the Making of the Suez Canal, 1859-1906" (U California Press, 2023)
Lucia Carminati's book Seeking Bread and Fortune in Port Said: Labor Migration and the Making of the Suez Canal, 1859-1906 (U California Press, 2023) probes migrant labor's role in shaping the history of the Suez Canal and modern Egypt. It maps the everyday life of Port Said's re ... Show More
55m 3s
Sep 2024
[TEASER] Oil, Monopoly Capitalism, and Imperialism w/ Adam Hanieh
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>This is a free preview of the episode "Oil, Monopoly Capitalism, and Imperialism w/ Adam Hanieh." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: <a href= "https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast">https://www.patreon.com/upstrea ... Show More
19m 10s
Jul 2024
Wendy Matsumura, "Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)
In Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-Imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire (Duke UP, 2024) Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of colonial violence at the heart of Japanese nation-state formation. She critiques Japan studies’ role in this effacement and contends ... Show More
59m 25s
Aug 2024
Claudia Strauss, "What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic" (ILR Press, 2024)
What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic (ILR Press, 2024) goes beyond the stereotypes and captures the diverse ways Americans view work as a part of a good life.
Dispelling the notion of Americans as mere workaholics, Claudia Strauss presents a more nuanced perspective. W ... Show More
59m 6s
Aug 2024
Claudia Strauss, "What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic" (ILR Press, 2024)
What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic (ILR Press, 2024) goes beyond the stereotypes and captures the diverse ways Americans view work as a part of a good life.
Dispelling the notion of Americans as mere workaholics, Claudia Strauss presents a more nuanced perspective. W ... Show More
59m 6s
May 2024
Salar Mameni, "Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics (Duke UP, 2023), Salar Mameni historicizes the popularization of the scientific notion of the Anthropocene alongside the emergence of the global war on terror. Mameni theorizes the Terracene as an epoch marked by a convergence of racialized milita ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 2023
Christian O. Paiz, "The Strikers of Coachella: A Rank-And-File History of the UFW Movement" (UNC Press, 2023)
The past decades have borne witness to the United Farm Workers' (UFW) tenacious hold on the country's imagination. Since 2008, the UFW has lent its rallying cry to a presidential campaign and been the subject of no less than nine books, two documentaries, and one motion picture. ... Show More
1h 10m
Sep 2025
Yemen as the Global Home of Coffee | Nancy Um
<p>We challenge contemporary perceptions of Yemen as a "backwater" by revealing the pivotal role of its port city, Mocha, in the making of our modern world. Historian Nancy Um delves into the fascinating history of coffee, from its origins in 15th-century Yemen to its global spre ... Show More
55m 37s
Unruly Labor: A History of Oil in the Arabian Sea (Stanford UP, 2024) by Andrea Wright offers a critical and nuanced examination of the labor regimes that sustain the oil economies of the Arabian Peninsula. Challenging dominant narratives centered on state-building, elite wealth, and resource control, Wright focuses on the transnational laborers whose work h ... Show More
