May 10, 2021
Share this with FacebookShare this with TwitterShare this with LinkedInShare this with EmailPrint this
Alan Mikhail
Alan Mikhail, an authority on Middle Eastern history, global history, and histories of empire and the environment, has been appointed the Chace Family Professor of History, effective April 17.
He is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and is chair of the Department of History.
In his four books, Mikhail unearths narratives of environmental change and of imperial power previously untold about the Middle East. “Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History” (2011), which was awarded Yale’s Ranis and Heyman Prizes, as well as the Roger Owen Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association, is the first historical work to show how control of natural resources shaped the Ottoman Empire’s role in Egypt. In “The Animal in Ottoman Egypt” (2014), also a winner of the Ranis Prize, Mikhail revealed how changing relationships between animals and humans were central to the transformation of Egypt from an early modern society to a 19th-century centralizing state. “Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History” (2017) broadens the scope of Mikhail’s earlier work. It offers a new interpretation of Middle Eastern history that shows how imperial activity shaped the environment and how Islam relates to the natural world. “Under Osman’s Tree” was awarded the M. Fuat Köprülü Book Prize of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association and named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.