20th Century Archives | Journal of Levantine Studies

The World in a Speck of Dust

by On Barak In the autobiographical novel The Cairo House, the Egyptian-American author Samia Serageldin recalls her desire for the world outside Egypt, “a world in which you did not constantly lose the battle against dust and baksheesh.” In another work, Out of Egypt, André Aciman also expresses disgust with post-1952 Egypt, where “there are too many vagrants, too much [...]

19th Century, 20th Century, Climate, Drought, Dust, Egypt, Histoy, Mediterranean, Middle East, On Barak, Social History, Social History Workshop, Weather Read more...

JLS's blog is a platform for interactive academia: in partnership with our contributors and The Social History Workshop, the blog is a platform of public history, discussions, and writing about the Levant. If you are interested in submitting a blog-post, send an e-mail to jls@vanleer.org.il.

The Social History Workshop is a blog on the Haaretz website and a platform of public history that aims to bring to the general public current discussions that concern the past, present, and future of the Middle East. The Workshop was founded in August 2013 by Dr. Liat Kozma of Hebrew University, and Dr. On Barak and Dr. Avner Wishnitzer of Tel Aviv University. Social history is not only a history that focuses on society as its main object of study, but also history as a socio-political act. Over the last two and a half years, the blog has published almost 150 short articles about different aspects of Middle Eastern history, from warfare to desertification, from nocturnal life to slavery, and from technology to prostitution. In collaboration with JLS the posts have been translated into English and made available on the JLS blog.

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The World in a Speck of Dust

Gas and Race

Electricity

Sophia Loren and Little Tony: The Leisure Life of the Jews of Tripoli, Libya, in the 1950s and 1960s

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