History

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2008
A Half-Century of Greatness paints a vivid and dramatic picture of the creative thought of mid- to late nineteenth century Europe and the influence of the unsuccessful revolutions of 1848. It reveals often unexpected links between novelists, poets, and philosophers from England, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine—especially Dickens, Carlyle, Mill, the Brontës, and George Eliot; Hegel, Strauss, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, Wagner, and several German poets; the Hungarian poet Sándor Petöfi; Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bakunin, and Herzen in Russia, and the great Ukrainian poet Shevchenko. Ewen goes on to trace the transition from Romanticism to Victorianism, or what he calls “the Victorian compromise”—the ascendancy of the middle class.
The book was reconstructed and edited by Dr. Jeffrey Wollock from Ewen’s final manuscript. It includes the author's own reference citations throughout, a reconstructed bibliography, and an updated “further reading” list.
This is Ewen’s last work, the long-lost companion to his Heroic Imagination. Together, these books present a panorama of the social, political, and artistic aspects of European Romanticism, especially foreshadowing and complementing recent work on the relation of Marxism to romanticism. Anyone interested in what Lukacs called “Romantic anticapitalism,”; who appreciates such books as Marshall Berman's Adventures in Marxism or E.P. Thompson's The Romantics (1997), will find Ewen’s work a welcome addition.

A wide-ranging exploration of the daily lives of ordinary Coptic Christians, from late Antiquity until today

This volume brings together leading experts from a range of disciplines to examine aspects of the daily lived experiences of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority from late Antiquity to the present. In doing so, it serves as a supplement and a corrective to institutional or theological narratives, which are generally rooted in studying the wielders of historical power and control.

Coptic Culture and Community reveals the humanity of the Coptic tradition, giving granular depth to how Copts have lived their lives through and because of their faith for two thousand years. The first three sections consider in turn the breadth of the daily life approach, perspectives on poverty and power in a variety of different contexts, and matters of identity and persecution. The final section reflects on the global Coptic diaspora, bringing themes studied for the early Coptic Church into dialog with Coptic experiences today. These broad categories help to link fundamental questions of socio-religious history with unique aspects of Coptic culture and its vibrant communities of individuals.

Contributors:
- Nicola Aravecchia, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Mariam F. Ayad, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
- Renate Dekker, Leiden, the Netherlands
- Lois M. Farag, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
- Ihab Khalil, Coptic Museum of Canada, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
- A.D. MacDonald, Sydney, Australia
- Ash Melika, California Baptist University, Riverside, California, USA
- Samuel Moawad, Institute of Egyptology and Coptology, Münster, Germany
- Helene Moussa, Coptic Museum of Canada, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
- Alanna Nobbs, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
- Carolyn Ramzy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Christina Thérèse Rooijakkers, Leiden University, Oegstgeest, the Netherlands
- Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Sankt Ignatios College, University College Stockholm, Sweden

A timely look at the economic revolution that took place in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

The rise of the monetary economy transformed every aspect of medieval Europe, including its values and culture. Medieval Money explores the ways art reflected and reinforced the complex ethical discussions that developed from the widespread role of money in everyday life in the Middle Ages. It traces the origins of global money, and surveys economic history, focusing on the environment, the plague, Jews, and institutions, using a wealth of imagery including illuminated manuscripts, coins, artworks, money chests, and account books.

The iconography, minting, and foreign exchange of coins are examined, and the choice that Christians faced is investigated: should they save their money or their soul? The authors explore images of Avarice, the greedy punished in hell, and immoral ways to earn and spend money, and analyze representations of charity and voluntary poverty. Final chapters examine the material culture of the monetary economy (from an illuminated oath for minters to purses and lockboxes) and images of medieval money management.

Winner of the Palestine Book Awards 2024 Creative Award

A unique, stunning collection of images of Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a testament to the vibrancy of Palestinian society prior to occupation.

This book tells the story, in both English and Arabic, of a land full of people—people with families, hopes, dreams, and a deep connection to their home—before Israel’s establishment in 1948, known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” Denying Palestinian existence has been a fundamental premise of Zionism, which has sought not only to hide this existence but also to erase its memory.

But existence leaves traces, and the imprint of the Palestine that was remains, even in the absence of those expelled from their lands. It appears in the ruins of a village whose name no longer appears in the maps, in the drawing of a lost landscape, in the lyrics of a song, or in the photographs from a family album.

Co-edited by Teresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro and featuring a foreword by Mohammed El-Kurd, the photographs in this book are traces of that existence that have not been erased. They are testament not to nostalgia, but to the power of resistance.

At the center of the world-famous pyramid field of the Memphite necropolis lies a group of pyramids, temples, and tombs named after the nearby village of Abusir. Long overshadowed by the more familiar pyramids at Giza and Saqqara, this area has nonetheless been the site, for the last fifty years, of an extensive operation to discover its past.
This thoroughly updated in-depth study documents the uncovering by a dedicated team of Czech archaeologists of a hitherto neglected wealth of ancient remains dating from the Old Kingdom to the Late Period. This is Abusir, realm of Osiris, God of the dead, and its story is one of both modern archaeology and the long-buried mysteries that it seeks to uncover.

The story of urban, rural, and desert jewelry in modern Egypt, in a beautifully designed new edition
 
For many women of Egypt, their jewelry is their bank—they wear their wealth in their gold. But jewelry in Egypt is also more than mere assets, and its design and manufacture reveal a great array of styles and a high degree of skill and artistry. In this lavishly illustrated book, Azza Fahmy, herself a world-renowned designer of jewelry based on traditional motifs, lays before us an Aladdin’s cave of jewelry made in all corners of Egypt over the last one hundred years, collected through her extensive travels throughout the country.

From the farms and villages of the Nile Valley and Delta, from the oases of the Western Desert and the mountains and wadis of Sinai and the Eastern Desert, from Nubia in the south, and from the crowded traditional neighborhoods of Cairo is displayed a cornucopia of gold and silver adornment—each area with its own distinctive favored style. Personal seals have been widely employed, and there is even jewelry for special occasions, such as the appeasement of malignant spirits, and for animals.

In this completely redesigned edition of her bestselling book, in a new and elegant format, the author not only documents all these varieties and illustrates them with the finest examples, she also describes the techniques and skills involved in their production and the materials used, and recounts her own journey of learning as she apprenticed with the leading master jewelers to become the best known jeweler in Egypt, whose work is worn by world leaders, royalty, and connoisseurs of jewelry around the globe.

Though Egypt was ruled by Turkish-speakers through most of the period from the ninth century until 1952, the impact of Turkish culture there remains under-studied. This book deals with the period from 1805 to 1952, during which Turkish cultural patterns, spread through reforms based on those of Istanbul, may have touched more Egyptians than ever before. An examination of the books, newspapers, and other written materials produced in Turkish, including translations, and of the presses involved, reveals the rise and decline of Turkish culture in government, the military, education, literature, music, and everyday life. The author also describes the upsurge in Turkish writing generated by Young Turk exiles from 1895 to 1909.

Included is a CD containing Appendices of extensive bibliographic information concerning books and periodicals printed in Egypt during this period.

In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on western language sources. In the past forty years new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region.

Contributors: Kenneth M. Cuno, Y. Hakan Erdem, Michael Ferguson, Emad Ahmad Helal Shams al-Din, Liat Kozma, George Michael La Rue, Ahmad A. Sikainga, Eve M. Troutt Powell, and Terence Walz.

Based on the Hamilton A.R. Gibb Lectures given by Nelly Hanna at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University, this groundbreaking book will be of interest to all those looking for a different perspective on the history of south–north relations.
Aiming to place Egypt clearly in the context of some of the major worldwide transformations of the three centuries from 1500 to 1800, Professor Hanna questions the mainstream view that has identified the main sources of modern world history as the Reformation, the expansion of Europe into America and Asia, the formation of trading companies, and scientific discoveries. She adds to the debate by showing that there were worldwide trends that touched Egypt, India, southeast Asia, and Europe: in all these areas, for example, there were linguistic shifts that brought the written language closer to the spoken word. She also demonstrates that technology and know-how, far from being centered only in Europe, flowed in different directions: for instance, in the eighteenth century, French entrepreneurs were trying to imitate the techniques of bleaching and dyeing of cloth that they found in Egypt and other Ottoman localities.

A medical practitioner and talented draftsman, Alessandro Ricci was born in Siena, Italy, at the end of the eighteenth century. He traveled extensively throughout Egypt and Sudan between 1817 and 1822. During his stay, he worked as an epigraphist for Giovanni B. Belzoni in the tomb of Seti I and later entered into the service of British consul general Henry Salt and English explorer William John Bankes, on whose behalf he visited and documented Siwa (1820), Sinai (1820), and Nubia (1818–19 and 1821–22). Ricci also became the physician to Ibrahim Pasha's Upper Egypt expedition and achieved fame for daringly saving the life of Ibrahim Pasha during the military campaign that led to Egypt’s conquest of Sudan in 1821–22. Upon his return to Italy, Ricci wrote a long account of all his journeys and reworked a series of ninety plates into striking form, yet failed to publish either.

In 2009, Daniele Salvoldi identified a complete typewritten copy of Ricci’s Travels in the National Archives of Egypt in Cairo. Drawings intended to accompany the text as plates were tracked down in different locations in Italy and the United Kingdom. From Siena to Nubia is the English-translated critical edition, with notes and introductory chapters, of Ricci’s travel account, which provides detailed information about the countries he visited, including descriptions of ancient ruins and social customs, botanical and geological remarks, and historical and ethnographical observations. It adds to the recent, growing corpus of exploration literature on nineteenth-century Egypt as well as bringing to light obscure sources important to the early history of Egyptology.

The travel accounts, drawings, and collections of Frédéric Cailliaud were an important early contribution to the birth of the new scientific discipline of Egyptology in the first half of the nineteenth century. But one of his major works—on the arts and crafts of ancient Egypt—was never published. For the first time here, his exquisite color plates are presented alongside a translation of his original French text describing them. Explanatory material by Andrew Bednarski and other scholars puts the work in context.
Arriving in Egypt in 1815, Cailliaud embarked upon a series of explorations that included the rediscovery of the Roman emerald mines at Mount Zabora and ancient routes to the Red Sea, and expeditions in the Eastern and Western Deserts and the land we know today as Ethiopia. He made copious notes on the flora and fauna, people and antiquities he saw, and took a collection of over two thousand objects back to France. Cailliaud’s beautifully rendered watercolors of scenes on ancient Egyptian tombs and temples (viewed before Champollion’s deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs) show animated scenes of ancient daily life, with which he draws parallels to the nineteenth-century activities he observed around him.
This is a work that will appeal not only to Egyptologists (professional and amateur), but also to historians, art historians, and readers interested in design. The original French text, never before published, is included in electronic form.

The extraordinary story of how an obelisk from the banks of Luxor was transferred to the Place de la Concorde in Paris in the early 19th century

Transporting the Luxor obelisk from Egypt to Paris was one of the great engineering triumphs of the early nineteenth century. No obelisk this size (two hundred and fifty tons) had left Egypt in nearly two thousand years, and the task of bringing it fell to a young engineer, Apollinaire Lebas, a man of extraordinary resolve and ability. His is a tale of adventure, excitement, and drama, but one hardly known to the English-speaking world.

Lebas’ team was struck by the plague; they ran out of wood; they had to wait four months for the Nile to rise to free their beached ship. But in the end, The Luxor, with its precious cargo on board, sailed down the Nile. On October 25, 1836 before two hundred thousand cheering Parisians, Lebas raised his obelisk. He was rewarded handsomely by his king, a medal with his name on it was struck, and his body lies in the famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris along with French luminaries. Now this first-ever translation of Lebas’s account, including digitally enhanced copies of his beautiful drawings, makes his remarkable story available to a wide audience.

An essential study of parliamentary politics in postwar Iraq and Syria, before the consolidation of authoritarian rule under the Ba’th Party

When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East explores three main interrelated issues to clarify what happened between 1946 and 1963 in Iraq and Syria: how and why a parliamentary system prevailed in both countries in the aftermath of the Second World War; what social effects this system triggered, and, in turn, how these changes affected the system; and finally, why the elites in both countries were unable to overcome the unrest that brought an end to both a liberal era and to a certain kind of political game.

Drawing on a vast array of sources and rich archival research in French, English, and Arabic, Matthieu Rey highlights the processes of the parliamentary system in the modern era, which are very common to post-independence countries and to any representative regime. He tackles the intersection of multifaceted political phenomena that were present in that moment in Iraq and Syria, including regular elections, the implementation of emergency law, the freedom of the press, the open expression of opinions, the formation of new political parties, frequent military coups, and the joint exercise of power by members of the old classes and reformist newcomers.

Treating this period as neither an epilogue of the liberal order nor a prelude to authoritarianism, and stressing the contingent, improvisatory aspects of political history, Rey fundamentally questions the transitional nature of the period and in doing so proposes new ways and tools of examining it.

A highly illustrated study of the uniquely decorated tombs of Greco-Roman tombs in Alexandria with the aid of advanced computer technology

In the Greco-Roman catacombs of Alexandria, uniquely decorated tombs from the time when religious boundaries blurred and syncretistic beliefs flourished have long been known. But it was only in 1993 that researchers discovered faint traces of paintings on walls previously thought to be blank, or underneath other painted scenes: the hidden scenes could be partly made out and photographed using ultraviolet light. Then in 2012, new computer technology was used to reveal the lost images—and colors—even more clearly.

Here the team present, examine, and interpret what they found, teasing meaning and intent from the alternating scenes of Greek and Egyptian mythology, as employed by the citizens of a multicultural Alexandria at the beginning of the second century CE, in pursuit of a happy afterlife.

A bold firsthand account of one of the persistent Arab uprisings, in Yemen

At its beginning in 2007, the Southern Movement in South Yemen was a loose merger of different people, most of them former army personnel and state employees of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) who were forced from their jobs after the war in 1994, only four years after the unification between the PDRY and the Yemen Arab Republic.

This bold ethnographic account of a persistent Arab uprising, in a rarely studied corner of the Middle East, explores why the Southern Movement has grown so tremendously during the last decade, and how it developed from a primarily social movement demanding social rights into a mass protest movement claiming independence for a state that had long vanished from the world map. Anne-Linda Amira Augustin asks why so many young people born after 1990 joined the movement and demanded the re-establishment of a state that they had never themselves experienced.

At the core of South Yemeni resistance lies the transmission from generation to generation of a dominant counternarrative, which may be seen as the continuation and rehabilitation of the PDRY’s national narrative. This narrative, amplified through everyday communication in families and neighborhoods, but also by media-makers, journalists, school and university teachers, civil society actors, and by the movement’s activists, opposes the national-unity narrative of the Republic of Yemen and intensifies the demands for an independent state.

A meticulous deconstruction of Maronite history writing and the ways in which Lebanese nationalist myths have been invented and perpetuated by historians

As a frequently contested territory, Mount Lebanon has an equally contested history, one that is produced, shaped, and revised by as many players as those who molded the Lebanese state since its inception in 1920. The Lebanese Maronite Church has had more at stake in the process of history writing than any other group or institution. It is arguably one of the most influential institutions in Lebanese history and definitely the most influential institution in the country at the moment of the state’s birth.

Writing the History of Mount Lebanon traces the genealogy of Maronite identity by examining the historical traditions that shaped its contemporary manifestation. It explores the presence of a tradition in Maronite Church historiography that was maintained by the historians of the Church, whose claims and hypotheses ultimately defined the communal identity of the Maronites in Mount Lebanon and deeply influenced subsequent Lebanese national identity. Rooted in a reexamination of the existing literature and bringing evidence to bear on this particular aspect of history-writing in Lebanon, it shows how early Maronite ecclesiastic historiography’s plea for inclusion as a part of Catholic orthodoxy was transformed and recast in subsequent centuries by lay and secular historians into a demand for exclusion and exclusivity, which in turn led to the rise of exclusivist political identities based on sectarian belonging in Mount Lebanon.

Ultimately, Mouannes Hojairi shows how history-writing is one of the main instruments in generating and perpetuating nationalist ideologies and how historians are central agents of nationality.

Many disenchanted Kashmiris continue to demand independence or freedom from India. Written by a leading authority on Kashmir’s troubled past, this book revisits the topic of independence for the region (also known as Jammu and Kashmir, or J&K), and explores exactly why this aspiration has never been fulfilled. In a rare India-Pakistan agreement, they concur that neither J&K, nor any part of it, can be independent.

Charting a complex history and intense geo-political rivalry from Maharaja Hari Singh’s leadership in the mid-1920s to the present, this book offers an essential insight into the disputes that have shaped the region. As tensions continue to rise following government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns, Snedden asks a vital question: what might independence look like and just how realistic is this aspiration?

A lushly illustrated gazetteer of the archaeological sites of southern Egypt and northern Sudan and named a 2012 American Publishers (PROSE) Awards winner for Best Archaeology & Anthropology Book

For most of the modern world, ancient Nubia seems an unknown and enigmatic land. Only a handful of archaeologists have studied its history or unearthed the Nubian cities, temples, and cemeteries that once dotted the landscape of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubia’s remote setting in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with access by river blocked by impassable rapids, has lent it not only an air of mystery, but also isolated it from exploration. Over the past century, particularly during this last generation, scholars have begun to focus more attention on the fascinating cultures of ancient Nubia, ironically prompted by the construction of large dams that have flooded vast tracts of the ancient land.

This book attempts to document some of what has recently been discovered about ancient Nubia, with its remarkable history, architecture, and culture, and thereby to give us a picture of this rich, but unfamiliar, African legacy.

• Peruse the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants. 
• See how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.
• Encounter intimate stories of vulnerability and desire along with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politics.
• Witness the authority that travel documents exercise over our movements and our emotions as we circulate around the globe.

What happened to ancient Greek thought after Antiquity? What impact did Abrahamic religions have on medieval Byzantine and Islamic scholars who adapted and reinvigorated this ancient philosophical heritage? Reason and Revelation in Byzantine Antioch tackles these questions by examining the work of the eleventh-century Christian theologian Abdallah ibn al-Fadl, who undertook an ambitious program of translating Greek texts, ancient and contemporary, into Arabic. Poised between the Byzantine Empire that controlled his home city of Antioch and the Arabic-speaking cultural universe of Syria-Palestine, Egypt, Aleppo, and Iraq, Ibn al-Fadl engaged intensely with both Greek and Arabic philosophy, science, and literary culture. Challenging the common narrative that treats Christian and Muslim scholars in almost total isolation from each other in the Middle Ages, Alexandre M. Roberts reveals a shared culture of robust intellectual curiosity in the service of tradition that has had a lasting role in Eurasian intellectual history.

What history, pop culture, and diaspora can teach us about North and South Korea today.

Korea is one of the last divided countries in the world. Twins born of the Cold War, one is vilified as an isolated, impoverished, time-warped state with an abysmal human rights record and a reclusive leader who perennially threatens global security with his clandestine nuclear weapons program. The other is lauded as a thriving democratic and capitalist state with the thirteenth largest economy in the world and a model for developing countries to emulate.

In The Koreas, Theodore Jun Yoo provides a compelling gateway to understanding the divergent developments of contemporary North and South Korea. In contrast to standard histories, Yoo examines the unique qualities of the Korean diaspora experience, challenging the master narratives of national culture, homogeneity, belongingness, and identity. This book draws from the latest research to present a decidedly demythologized history, with chapters focusing on feature stories that capture the key issues of the day as they affect popular culture and everyday life. The Koreas will be indispensable to any historian, armchair or otherwise, in need of a discerning and reliable guide to the region.
 

• Synthesizes historical information from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Latin sources that are otherwise inaccessible to English-speaking audiences.
• Presents in an accessible manner individual life stories that serve as a springboard for discussing themes such as military expansion, cross-cultural contacts, migration, conversion, gender, diplomacy, transregional commercial networks, and more.
• Each chapter includes a bibliography to assist students and instructors seeking to further explore the individuals and topics discussed.
• Informative maps, images, and tables throughout the volume supplement each biography.

In Muhammad and the Empires of Faith, Sean W. Anthony demonstrates how critical readings of non-Muslim and Muslim sources in tandem can breathe new life into the historical study of Muhammad and how his message transformed the world. By placing these sources within the intellectual and cultural world of Late Antiquity, Anthony offers a fresh assessment of the earliest sources for Muhammad’s life, taking readers on a grand tour of the available evidence, and suggests what new insights stand to be gained from the techniques and methods pioneered by countless scholars over the decades in a variety of fields. Muhammad and the Empires of Faith offers both an authoritative introduction to the multilayered traditions surrounding the life of Muhammad and a compelling exploration of how these traditions interacted with the broader landscape of Late Antiquity.