Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Susan Douglass, doctoral candidate, George Mason University In the late 15th century, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and conquered the Indian Ocean, bringing the rich … Continue reading →

In the first of a two part episode guest Susan Douglass describes the murky beginnings of trade and travel in the Indian Ocean basin, and the cultural exchanges and influences that the trade had in the days before the Europeans arrived.

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Susan Douglass, doctoral candidate, George Mason University Every American schoolchild knows that Columbus sailed west to reach Asia with the hope of finding precious metals, expensive fabrics, and exotic … Continue reading →

Guest Charles E. King from Georgetown University discusses the state of Ukranian-Russian relations, and historical developments in Ukraine itself to help us understand the situation in Ukraine today.

Host: Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest: Charles King, Professor of International Affairs and Government, Georgetown University In the first months of 2014, a popular uprising in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine led to the deposition … Continue reading →

Guest Samuel Thrope offers a fascinating look at a time when Iranian socialists looked at Israel as a possible model for what Iran could become—and how that vision soured after the 1967 Six Day War.

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Samuel Thrope, Fellow, Martin Buber Society, Hebrew University Anyone following the news today could be forgiven for thinking that Iran and Israel were natural enemies and had been since … Continue reading →

Guest Sam White from Ohio State University makes the convincing argument that environmental and climactic factors are as influential in human history as economic, social, political, and cultural factors.

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Sam White, Department of History, the Ohio State University What do a failed war by the Ottomans against the Hapsburg Empire, a rural rebellion in eastern Anatolia, the disappearance … Continue reading →

Guest Karl Hagstrom Miller helps us understand how popular music came to be segregated as artists negotiated the restrictions known as the "Jim Crow" laws in the late 19th and 20th centuries.