Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East (University Press of Colorado, 2025) by Dr. Tiffany Earley-Spadoni offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of present-day Turkey, Armenia, and Iran in the early first millennium BCE. Lesser known than its rival, the Neo-Assyrian empire, Urartu pre ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Today
Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer et al eds., "Mapping Medical Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
What does medical anthropology look like in the twenty-first century? That is the central question of Mapping Medical Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century, a new edited volume by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, Junko Kitanaka and Eugene Raikhel, published by Rutgers University Press ... Show More
57m 16s
May 2026
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement ... Show More
23m 24s
Jan 2022
David Leupold, "Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory" (Routledge, 2020)
Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory (Routledge, 2020) explores the complex relationship between competing national myths, imagined boundaries and local memories in the threefold-contested geography referred to as Eastern Turkey, W ... Show More
51m 21s
Feb 2016
Middle East history special
Kanishk Tharoor and Maryam Maruf, the presenter and producer of the new radio series Museum of Lost Objects, highlight some of the antiquities that have been destroyed during recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, we’re joined by historian Tom Asbridge to explore the even ... Show More
57m 42s
Jul 2024
Zana Gulmohamad, "The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews with senior officials and politicians, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite (Bloomsbury, 2021) provides a clear analysis of the development of domestic Iraqi politics since ... Show More
1h 6m
Nov 2024
Scott J. Weiner, "Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship ... Show More
44m 1s
May 2019
Houri Berberian, "Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds" (U California Press, 2019)
In her newest book, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds (University of California Press, 2019), Dr. Houri Berberian uses a transnational or transimperial approach to examine the interconnectedness of 1905 Russ ... Show More
56m 6s
Jan 2024
Nicholas Morton, "The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Nicholas Morton’s The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 (Oxford UP, 2020) explores the military history of the medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where eth ... Show More
56m 49s
Feb 2025
Alisse Waterston, "My Father's Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century" (Routledge, 2024)
On the podcast today I am joined by Presidential Scholar and Professor Emerita of Anthropology at John Jay College, City University of New York, Alisse Waterston to talk about her award-winning book, My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of A Century (Routledge, 2 ... Show More
1h 14m