Empires of Faith

The cultural, religious, and political history of the Middle East as reflected in the region today

The Middle East has always been a central site for trade and conquests. Its location has brought enormous wealth, cultural exchange, and intellectual vitality—but also conflicts, instability, and enduring political tensions. Understanding the region’s past is crucial to understanding the present day. 

In Empires of Faith, internationally renowned scholars and writers explore the long history of the Middle East—from Mesopotamia, the Persian Empire, and Alexander the Great to the emergence of Christianity and Islam, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and the dramatic transformation of the region in the twentieth century. How have religion, civilisation, and imperial ambitions shaped the region? What is the legacy of the great empires and how did they influence laws, culture, governance, and the everyday lives of their subjects? And to what extent are the repercussions of this history still visible in today’s political and religious landscape?

Rania Abouzeid, Journalist, Author and Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
Jon B. Alterman, Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C.
Ali M. Ansari, Professor of Iranian History and founding Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews
James Barr, Author and Journalist. He has written several historical works on the Middle East.
Ali Fathollah-Nejad, Founder and Director of the Center for Middle East and Global Order, Fellow with the University of Bonn’s Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies
Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford
Chaim Gans, Professor Emeritus of Law at the Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University
Amber Gartrell, Lecturer in Roman History at the Department of History at University College London
Kim Ghattas, Kim Ghattas is a Middle East expert, author and Emmy-award winning journalist. She’s contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine and contributing editor for The Financial Times.
Andrew S. Gilmour, Scholar-in- Residence at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University of America
Martin Goodman, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the British Academy
Sir John Jenkins, Associate fellow of Chatham House, the Strand Leader for the Middle East and North Africa at Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange and Adviser to the Conservative Middle East Council
Halil M. Karaveli, Senior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and Editor of the Turkey Analyst
Elisabeth Kendall, Mistress [President] of Girton College at the University of Cambridge
Hugh Kennedy, Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Stephen Kotkin, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the Birkelund Professor Emeritus of History and International Affairs at the former Woodrow Wilson School for International and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Nelly Lahoud, Professor of Security Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College
Göran Larsson, Professor of religious studies, especially focused on religious history, at University of Gothenburg.
Gabriel Martinez-Gros, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Paris-Nanterre
General Sir Simon Mayall, Former soldier in the British Army
Yossef Rapoport, Professor of Islamic History at Queen Mary University, London
Mark Ronan, Honorary Professor of Mathematics at University College London
Stefanie Rudolf, Postdoctoral Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin
Peter Sarris, Professor of Late Antique, Medieval and Byzantine Studies at the University of Cambridge
Nathan Shachar, Journalist and Author. His collections of essays have received the most prestigious Swedish literary awards, including the Övralid Prize in 2014. He has been a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and Latin America and is a member of the editorial board of Axess magazine.
Brendan Simms, Professor of the History of European International Relations and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge
Selena Wisnom, Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East, University of Leicester