Current Position
Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Oxford (2015-)
Director, the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford (1998-)
Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford (1991-)
Previous Posts
University Lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford (1991-2015)
Visiting Lecturer in Modern Middle East History, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge (Michaelmas Term 1993)
Visiting Assistant Professor in the study of the modern Middle East, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY (1990-91)
Adjunct Lecturer in European and Middle Eastern history, Boston College (Spring 1990)
Education
Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University (1991)
Dissertation: “Incorporating the Periphery: The Ottoman Extension of Direct Rule to Southeastern Syria (Transjordan), 1867-1914”
M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University (1984)
B.A. in Economics, Columbia College (1982).
Honours and Awards
2017 Fellow of the British Academy
2017 Islamic Book Award for the Indonesian translation of The Fall of the Ottomans, Jakarta Islamic Book Fair, Indonesia.
2016 British Army Military Book of the Year Award, for The Fall of the Ottomans.
2012 Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship (for 2012-2013 academic year for The Great War in the Middle East book project)
2011 British Academy Thank-Offering to Britain Senior Research Fellowship (for 2011-2012 academic year for The Great War in the Middle East book)
2006 Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of History, American University in Cairo.
2006 Council for British Research in the Levant grant (£10,000) to fund the Palestine Police Oral History Project in Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.
2000 Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association of North America, for Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire.
2000 M.Fuad Köprülü Prize of the Turkish Studies Association for Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire.
Publications
Books
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East (New York: Basic Books and London: Penguin Books, 2015). Named one of the best books of 2015 by The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. Foreign language editions: Spanish (Crítica, 2015); Danish (Kristelight Dagblads Forlag, 2016); Italian (Bompiani, 2016); Indonesian (Serambi, 2016); Chinese – Taiwan (Owl, 2016); Greek (Alexandria, 2016); Chinese – Beijing (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2016); Russian (Alpina, 2017); Japanese (Hakusui-Sha, 2017); Turkish (Iletisim, 2017); Arabic (Forum for Arab International Relations, 2018). Foreign language editions under contract in Bengali, Korean.
The Arabs: A History (New York: Basic Books and London: Penguin Books, 2009; 2nd Ed 2012; 3rd Ed 2018). Named one of the best books of 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, and The Financial Times. Foreign language editions: Netherlands (De Bezige Bij, 2010); Spanish (Crítica, 2010); Norwegian (Gyldendal, 2011); Arabic (Cairo: Kalimat Arabiya, 2011); German (Propyläen, 2012); Italian (Bompiani, 2012); French (Perrin, 2013); Japanese (Hakusui-Sha, 2014); Korean (Kashi, 2016); Danish (Kristelight Dagsblads Forlag, 2017); Turkish (Pegasus, 2018). Foreign language editions under contract in Chinese (Taiwan and Beijing), Russian, Portuguese (Brazil).
Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East, ed., (London: I.B.Tauris, 2002).
Aşiret Mektep Devlet: Osmanlı Devleti’nde Aşiret Mektebi [Tribe, School, State: The Tribal School in the Ottoman State] (with Alişan Akpinar), (Istanbul: Aram Yayıncılık, 2001).
Rewriting the Palestine War: 1948 and the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, ed. (with Avi Shlaim), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 2nd Ed 2007). Foreign language editions: French (Editions Autrement, 2002); Arabic (Cairo, Ruz al-Yusif 2001 and Riyadh, Obeikan, 2004); Italian (Il Ponte, 2004); Turkish (Küre, 2012).
Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan 1850-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Winner of the 2010 Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), and co-winner of the 2010 M. Fuad Köprülü Book Prize of the Turkish Studies Association.
Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times, ed. (with Alan Bowman), Proceedings of the British Academy vol. 96 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999).
Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan, ed. (with Tariq Tell), (London: British Academic Press, 1994).
Articles
“Exile and Memory: Arabs in the Ottoman Great War,” in Abdul Rahim Abu Husayn, Tarif Khalidi and Suleiman A. Mourad, eds, In the House of Understanding: Histories in Memory of Kamal S. Salibi (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2017), pp. 219-38.
“Rival Jihads: Islam and the Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1918,” Journal of the British Academy 4 (2016) pp. 1-20.
“No Stake in Victory: North African Soldiers of the Great War,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 14.2 (2014) pp. 322-33.
“The Yemen War and Egypt’s War Preparedness,” (with Tewfik Aclimandos), in Wm. Roger Louis and Avi Shlaim, eds, The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) pp. 149-64.
“The Emergence of the Middle East into the Modern State System,” in Louise Fawcett, ed, International Relations of the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp. 17-39.
“Sectarianism and Social Conflict in Damascus: The 1860 Events Reconsidered,” Arabica 51 (October 2004) pp. 493-511.
“The political significance of an Ottoman education: Maktab `Anbar revisited,” in Thomas Philipp and Christoph Schumann, eds, From the Syrian Land to the States of Syria and Lebanon (Beirut: Orient-Institut, 2004) pp. 77-94.
“Arab Books and Human Development,” Arab Studies Quarterly 26 (Spring 2004) pp. 67-80.
“Arab Books & Human Development,” Index on Censorship 33 (April 2004) pp. 154-57.
“Al-taghayyir al-ijtima`i al-sari` fi sharq al-urdunn fi’l-`ahd al-`uthmani” [“Rapid social change in Transjordan in the Ottoman Era”] in Hani Hourani, ed, Dirasat fi tarikh al-urdunn al-ijtima`i [Studies in the social history of Jordan] (Amman: Dar Sindbad, 2003), pp. 42-60.
“Mudhakkirat sharqi urduniyya min awakhir al-`ahd al-`uthmani” [“Transjordanian memoirs from the end of the Ottoman era”] in Hani Hourani, ed, Dirasat fi tarikh al-urdunn al-ijtima`i [Studies in the social history of Jordan] Amman: Dar Sindbad, 2003), pp. 589-603.
“Madness and Marginality: The Advent of the Psychiatric Asylum in Egypt and Lebanon,” in E.Rogan, ed, Outside In: On the margins of the modern Middle East (London: I.B.Tauris, 2002) pp. 104-25.
“Jordan and 1948: the persistence of an official history,” in Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 104-24.
“Missionary Rivalries in Ottoman Transjordan at the Turn of the 20th Century,” in G.Chatelard and M.Tarawneh, eds, Antonin Jaussen: Sciences Sociales Occidentales et Patrimoine Arabe (Beirut and Amman: CERMOC, 1999) pp. 37-49.
“Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times,” (with Alan Bowman) in A.Bowman and E.Rogan, eds, Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern Times (Proceedings of the British Academy 96. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.1-32.
“Instant Communication: The Impact of the Telegraph in Ottoman Syria,” in T.Philipp and B.Schäbler, eds, The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Separation in Bilad al-Sham from the 18th Century to the 20th Century (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998) pp.113-28.
“Aşiret Mektebi: Abdülhamid II’s School for Tribes (1892-1907)” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28 (1996) pp. 83-107.
“Silence Falls: The Critical Press in the Middle East,” Index on Censorship 2/1996, pp. 44-77.
“Wakala: Interpreting Ottoman Law in 19th Century rural Syria,” in H.Bleuchot, ed, Les institutions traditionelles dans le monde arabe (Paris: Karthala, 1996) pp. 41-54.
“The Making of a Capital: Amman 1918-1928,” in J.Hannoyer and S.Shami, eds, Amman: Ville et Socété (Beirut: CERMOC, 1996) pp. 109-28.
“Ottomans, Merchants and Tribes in the Syrian Frontier (1867-1900)” in D.Panzac, ed, Histoire Économique et Sociale de l’Empire Ottoman et de la Turquie (1326- 1960) (Paris: Peeters, 1995) pp. 251-62.
“Reconstructing Water Mills in Late Ottoman Transjordan,” in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan V (Amman: Department of Antiquities, 1995) pp. 753-56.
“Bringing the State Back: The Limits of Ottoman Rule in Jordan, 1840-1910,” in E.Rogan and T.Tell, Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan (London: British Academic Press, 1994) pp. 32-57.
“An Ottoman Report of an Umayyad Coin Hoard: Jarash, 1898,” with Luke Treadwell, Yarmouk Numismatics 6 (1994) pp. 20-29.
“Moneylending and Capital Flows from Nablus, Damascus an Jerusalem to Qada’ al- Salt in the Last Decades of Ottoman Rule,” in T.Philipp, ed, The syrian Land in the 18th and 19th Century (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992) pp. 239-60.
“Archival Resources and Research Institutions in Jordan,” MESA Bulletin 23 (1989) pp. 169-79.
“Physical Islamisation in Amman,” The Muslim World 76 (1986) pp.24-42.
“Nazra naqdiyya hawla taqrir Campbell-Bannerman” [A critical examination of the Campbell-Bannerman report], Al-Majallah al-Thaqafiyyah [Jordan] 9 (1985- 86) pp. 102-12.
Shorter pieces
“Ottoman Muslim Missionaries and the Transjordan Frontier,” ISIM Newsletter (Dec 1999) p. 19.
“No Debate: Middle East Studies in Europe,” Middle East Report 27 (Oct-Dec 1997) pp. 22-24.
“Mehmet Ali” and “Ahmad `Urabi” New Dictionary of National Biography.
“Wasfi al-Tall” Encyclopedia of Islam.
Editor and contributor for Middle East articles in The Cambridge Encyclopedia, Second Edition (1994).
“Jordan” Collier’s Encyclopedia (1989).
Editorial
Series Editor, The Contemporary Middle East, Cambridge University Press. Conceived and initiated a series intended to bridge area studies with the disciplines for both general readership and classroom use. Titles published to date:
Joel Beinin, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (2001)
Clement M.Henry and Robert Springborg, Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East (2001, 2nd Edition)
Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (2004, 2nd Edition )
Fred Halliday, The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology (2005)
Dawn Chatty, Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East (2010)
Series Editor, The Middle East: A Documentary Resource, Thomson-Gale Publising. Conceived and initiated a microfilm series, subsequently published online, to provide documents from the Public Records Office, Kew, on the Middle East in the Twentieth Century.
Series 1: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970.
Series 2: Iraq
Series Editor, St Antony’s/Macmillan monograph series (1997-99).
Editorial Committee, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (1996-), Eurasian Studies (2002-), Maghreb-Machrek (2002-).
Professional Associations
Fellow, The Royal Asiatic Society (2015-).
Fellow and Trustee, Palestine American Research Centre (2002-).
Fellow and Member of Council of the British Association of Middle East Studies (1993-1998)
Fellow and Member of the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History (1992-1996).
Fellow and Member of Council of the European Association of Middle East Studies (1995-1998)
Fellow of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (1990-).
Fellow of the Turkish Studies Association (2000-).
