"From a deep history perspective, Ottoman rule in Iraq — the land of ancient Babylonia — was a political oddity," writes Faisal Husain in Rivers of the Sultan: The...

How does history look at non-urban, rural populations who lived through the last century of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Turkish republic? Chris Gratien's The Unsettled...

In January 2022, Kazakhstan made international headlines when it was hit by waves of popular protests which were suppressed by the authorities in the Central Asian state. What began...

Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity by Elise Burton, is a sweeping history of 'genetic nationalism' in the 20th century covering Iran, Turkey, Israel,...

Jocelyn Hendrickson takes us on a historical and legal tour exploring Islamic responses to Christian conquests in Spain and North West Africa in her book Leaving Iberia: Islamic Law...

"Tyranny is the origin of every perversity," claims the author of The Nature of Tyranny and the Devastating Results of Oppression. "Tyranny corrupts the mind by restrictions, and degrades...

MEMO sat down with Emad Kiyaei of the Middle East Treaty Organisation to discuss the significance of the nuclear talks

96 km off the Horn of Africa coast lies a unique archipelago of Yemeni islands

This new book by Cigdem Oguz, who teaches history at Bologna University, reveals the growing concern in Ottoman society during the First World War about the decline in public...

The author of The Last Great War of Antiquity makes the point that its writing was "no easy task… but given the importance of the war, it is worth...

In post-World War One Iraq, Britain was the occupying power. At a celebration of Prophet Muhammad's birthday in 1920 (peace be upon him) in Baghdad's Haydar-Khana Mosque, blind poet...

Tancred Bradshaw concludes in his new book – The End of Empire in the Gulf: From Trucial States to the United Arab Emirates –  that, "The British imperial project...

Zana Gulmohamad's new book, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite, takes on the mammoth task of exploring and explaining how Iraq has...

Kelly A. Hammond's book China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II is published at a time when Islam in China is under intense scrutiny with...

Laleh Khalili's book Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula is a surprisingly seductive read. A cross between history, geopolitics and economics, with a...

Our interview with Mauritanian-American activist Nasser Weddady discussing corruption in Mauritania

The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa

Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions by Oludamini Ogunnaike is a sweeping and ambitious book that operates on multiple levels with...

Our interview with Dr Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, historian of nationalism and race at King's College London, about Islamophobia in France in light of President Emmanuel Macron's recent comments about Islam being 'in crisis'.

It is almost a year since Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani (11 March 1957 – 3 January 2020) was killed in a US drone attack near Baghdad International...

Social anthropologist Madawi Al-Rasheed's new book The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia looks at the conflicts taking place in the desert Kingdom both historically and under...

Ulrike Freitag's A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a seductively charming urban history of the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah,...

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi's Revolution and Its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran takes us on an intellectual tour of post-Islamism and Islamic left thought in Iran. The early 1990s...

On 29 October 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared the birth of the Republic of Turkey and became its first president

Arzoo Osanloo's Forgiveness Work: Mercy, Law and Victims' Rights in Iran takes us through a little discussed feature of the Iranian legal system, which has implications beyond the country...

"Under these circumstances, talking to a Western reporter could be a death sentence. And yet here in Douma, as soon as people saw that I was a journalist, they...

MEMO's Usman Butt takes a closer look at Egypt's MeToo moment in the context of the social and political structures in the country as well as the way in which the state handles ongoing cases

Sarah Hunaidi, a Syrian feminist and human rights activist, spoke exclusively to MEMO about the Syrian uprising, revolution and civil war, as well as the politics of the Druze community.

Li Guo's Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300-1900: A Handbook is a sweeping survey and interesting introduction to all things shadowy and theatrical. It is rare to say that an academic...

Ulf Laessing's book Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is published at a time when it has never been so important to know what is happening in Libya, but few outside...

Following the death of his father Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar Al-Assad official became president at only 34 years old

The nature of authoritarian rule in Syria remains little understood outside the country. As a notoriously closed society with limited access to the outside world before the 2000s, with...