1 00:00:00,210 --> 00:00:06,540 Good evening and welcome to this very special event at the Middle East Centre. 2 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:16,620 We are gathered here to celebrate the publication of the new book by Eugene Rogan. 3 00:00:17,250 --> 00:00:22,380 Um, obviously. And for me, it's a pleasure. 4 00:00:23,220 --> 00:00:32,820 It's an honour and a privilege to be asked to chair this event, because Eugene is one of my oldest and dearest friends. 5 00:00:33,650 --> 00:00:43,310 He's also my co-editor for War for Palestine Rewriting the History of 1948. 6 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:52,760 And most importantly, he's very useful to me, because I can only say that some of my best friends I've made of. 7 00:00:56,030 --> 00:01:08,180 Course. Eugene and I have done many double acts in the movie Senta in the last 33 years. 8 00:01:08,870 --> 00:01:17,120 Some of them were quite funny. On one occasion I was chairing and he was giving a talk, but I forgot I was chairing. 9 00:01:17,540 --> 00:01:26,000 So I started answering the questions. You know, Eugene stepped in and said, are there any more questions for Professor Schmidt? 10 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:40,100 We also have a long tradition of interrupting one another, but today we agreed that I'll speak for 30 minutes and [INAUDIBLE] speak for ten minutes. 11 00:01:45,860 --> 00:01:51,710 I told you, we interrupt one another. So you are quite right. 12 00:01:52,370 --> 00:01:56,209 It's the other way around. I'll speak for about ten minutes in Eugene. 13 00:01:56,210 --> 00:02:01,190 Then we'll speak about this group about 30 minutes, and I'll be speaking for ten minutes. 14 00:02:01,220 --> 00:02:06,260 Is a first smart device to keep an eye on the world. 15 00:02:07,130 --> 00:02:20,540 But most seriously, I want to take this opportunity to offer a very broad overview of Eugene's development as a scholar since he came to Oxford. 16 00:02:20,870 --> 00:02:23,570 33 years ago. 17 00:02:24,630 --> 00:02:34,590 I can only speak about you in the most glowing terms, and I know he's going to be embarrassed because he's really modest in this respect. 18 00:02:37,970 --> 00:02:43,110 This is unlike Uncle Joe, aka Joseph Stalin. 19 00:02:44,730 --> 00:02:54,510 They published an article about study. We found that they always gave him the draft of the article, and usually he scribbled at the bottom. 20 00:02:54,900 --> 00:03:08,630 They forgot to mention my modesty. Eugene came to Oxford for an interview for Electric Sheep in Middle East History in 1990. 21 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:13,890 I was a member of the selection committee at that time. 22 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:19,950 Eugene did not have his PhD. He was still up for doing a PhD at Harvard. 23 00:03:21,090 --> 00:03:29,340 But he gave a very good talk and also he displayed platinum grade social skills. 24 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:37,320 One other candidate on the shortlist was a well-established professor who had published a great deal. 25 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:44,760 And Eugene said to us, had he done that professor X was a candidate, he wouldn't have applied. 26 00:03:45,090 --> 00:03:49,140 And this went down very well, went down well with us. 27 00:03:50,520 --> 00:04:02,790 I've been a university teacher for 53 years, and I can honestly say that Eugene was the best academic appointment in which I had been involved. 28 00:04:03,740 --> 00:04:07,790 Eugene has, uh, co-authored four books. 29 00:04:08,890 --> 00:04:12,010 I have written endorsements for the last three. 30 00:04:14,410 --> 00:04:25,900 And I think that I know Eugene's work better than anyone, with the possible exception of his wife, 31 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:34,900 Naomi Watts, who is also an old friend of mine, because we both came to Oxford in 1987. 32 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:45,810 She is a Rhodes Scholar from New Zealand and I say Alister Buchan leading international relations, and I was in my first Enfield class. 33 00:04:46,510 --> 00:04:54,160 Eugene's first book, based on his Harvard PhD, is called The Frontiers of the state in the Late Ottoman Empire. 34 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:59,680 The book won two prizes. One of them was Albert, who won the prize. 35 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:04,150 It's a pioneering work in Ottoman historiography. 36 00:05:04,630 --> 00:05:09,250 It shifts the focus from the centre to the periphery. 37 00:05:10,700 --> 00:05:21,680 It's a very highly original piece of scholarship, which gives us the full panoply of primary sources in Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and French. 38 00:05:23,310 --> 00:05:28,410 It also upends the conventional wisdom on the subject. 39 00:05:28,890 --> 00:05:41,070 The conventional wisdom says that the foundations of the Jordanian state was laid after the First World War by Britain and its Hashemite allies. 40 00:05:42,030 --> 00:05:50,190 Hussein shows that the foundations of the Jordanian state were laid by the Ottomans in the late Ottoman period. 41 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:54,090 According to the British view, 42 00:05:54,270 --> 00:06:03,030 there was nothing in Transjordan before they arrived and it's time to leave suggests that you at the time was it was a black hole, 43 00:06:03,030 --> 00:06:08,190 and I think that I suggested was not a black hole. And very wisely he declined because. 44 00:06:10,830 --> 00:06:14,460 The second rule was the Arabs a history. 45 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:25,140 This covers five centuries of our history and it displays great erudition, wisdom and empathy. 46 00:06:25,980 --> 00:06:32,100 Western scholars often write about the Middle East from the outside looking in. 47 00:06:33,110 --> 00:06:36,080 And in my own discipline. International relations. 48 00:06:36,770 --> 00:06:44,840 Western scholars often write about the local actors as if they were mere driftwood on the sea of international affairs. 49 00:06:45,470 --> 00:06:49,070 The thing about this book is that it gives the Arabs agency, 50 00:06:49,910 --> 00:06:58,190 and another merit of the is that is not on the history of art, of history, but out of views of their own history. 51 00:06:59,530 --> 00:07:05,680 So the Medley Centre has produced two classic general histories of the region. 52 00:07:05,710 --> 00:07:09,700 One was Albert Hourani A history of the Arab Peoples. 53 00:07:10,150 --> 00:07:14,710 And the other is Eugene's book, The Arabs, the History. 54 00:07:16,110 --> 00:07:23,910 The fourth book is The Fall of the Ottomans, which was a bestseller and was translated into many languages. 55 00:07:24,150 --> 00:07:27,510 How many foreign languages you choose between all the books? 56 00:07:27,510 --> 00:07:31,190 It's 1818. How impressive. 57 00:07:33,410 --> 00:07:43,580 It. Is you can reach a global audience and to have your work translated into 80 languages. 58 00:07:43,970 --> 00:07:54,590 But it's not surprising, because this book is a very gripping account of the First World War from the vantage point of the Ottoman Empire. 59 00:07:55,370 --> 00:08:03,440 It combines deep scholarship with a very lively narrative style, which makes it a pleasure to read. 60 00:08:04,370 --> 00:08:12,470 Eugene's publishers asked me to write an endorsement, so they sent me an uncorrected proof copy. 61 00:08:13,590 --> 00:08:17,970 And for four days I sat in an armchair in my study. 62 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:22,770 I didn't look at my emails, and I just read the book from cover to cover. 63 00:08:23,940 --> 00:08:28,350 And it's a complex story. But he tells it with great clarity. 64 00:08:28,830 --> 00:08:39,030 And one thing that was particularly striking was the scale with which he related developments on the battlefield to great power diplomacy. 65 00:08:40,470 --> 00:08:44,280 And the fourth book is the one we are celebrating today. 66 00:08:44,460 --> 00:08:54,440 The Masters events. Once again, the publishers asked me for an endorsement and sent me an uncorrected proof copy. 67 00:08:55,070 --> 00:09:04,040 And what's remarkable about this is that usually uncorrected proof copies are riddled with mistakes, which are corrected later. 68 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:09,650 But in this case, I didn't detect a single misprint or typo. 69 00:09:10,070 --> 00:09:15,170 It was completely perfect and a tribute to his meticulous scholarship. 70 00:09:16,740 --> 00:09:21,780 Margaret McMillan also wrote an endorsement to this book. 71 00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:31,920 I'm very glad to see her here, but I won't ask you to stand up because everybody knows you since you were the former warden of this college. 72 00:09:32,980 --> 00:09:41,840 And sir. And Margaret is also my dearest cousin. 73 00:09:43,470 --> 00:09:53,400 Now, this is what she wrote in her endorsement. In the hands of the distinguished historian and master storyteller Eugene Rogan. 74 00:09:55,110 --> 00:09:59,310 An incident of communal violence in Damascus in 1860, 75 00:09:59,790 --> 00:10:08,219 is at once an evocation of the vanished world of the Ottoman Empire and an ominous 76 00:10:08,220 --> 00:10:13,770 foreshadowing of the communal violence tearing apart the Middle East today, 77 00:10:14,220 --> 00:10:17,700 unquote. I couldn't have put it better myself. 78 00:10:18,270 --> 00:10:28,650 So this completes my introduction, and I now call on Eugene to tell us about his book, in his own words. 79 00:10:28,830 --> 00:10:44,520 And please welcome. Ivy, thank you so much for the ritual embarrassment that you just put me through. 80 00:10:45,570 --> 00:10:50,730 I've lost on multiple occasions, but, you know, I expected nothing less. 81 00:10:51,150 --> 00:10:58,320 I meant to warn you all. There should be a warning that comes on the poster every time you come to an event with Ivy chairing me, or vice versa. 82 00:10:58,860 --> 00:11:01,980 That it just can be a little bit unpredictable. 83 00:11:03,860 --> 00:11:04,499 I think, Ivy, 84 00:11:04,500 --> 00:11:11,820 that you demonstrated in your very generous introduction just how unpredictable the direction of travel can be when you and I share a stage. 85 00:11:13,470 --> 00:11:24,330 It's so lovely to see you all, and there is always a sense when you do a book launch under this roof of a kind of family event, a family gathering. 86 00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:27,960 So I just want you to know that I can put my best suit on. 87 00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:33,360 You know, I got a haircut on deck. I was, like, properly dusted off before I came before you today. 88 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:41,370 Because we're talking about a book which really does sort of stand out as the defining project of my entire time here. 89 00:11:41,730 --> 00:11:44,850 This is the book that's taken 35 years to materialise. 90 00:11:45,450 --> 00:11:49,950 And as you'll see, for those of you who've got the book and you open the first pages, 91 00:11:50,550 --> 00:11:56,640 it starts back when I was a graduate student, back in 1989 on a visit to the American Archives, 92 00:11:56,730 --> 00:12:00,060 when I went to consult counsel the papers from Jerusalem to Damascus, 93 00:12:00,630 --> 00:12:08,550 that I stumbled on three volumes of Arabic handwritten reports by the first American vice consul to Damascus. 94 00:12:08,970 --> 00:12:15,450 Uh, man celebrated in his own time as the smartest or the best educated man in the Arab world. 95 00:12:15,810 --> 00:12:19,370 His name was behind him. He's well known for a history. 96 00:12:19,380 --> 00:12:26,370 He wrote in Arabic the title of Jalalabad, or The Response to the Suggestion of the Loved Ones, 97 00:12:26,670 --> 00:12:35,280 rendered in its brilliant English translation by Harvard scholar Wheeler Thaxton, and the slightly more salacious murder, mayhem, Pillage and Plunder. 98 00:12:37,270 --> 00:12:40,710 It's the history of Syria and Lebanon in the 18th and 19th century. 99 00:12:41,130 --> 00:12:47,400 And so Michalka was a known quantity. As I went to the archives to go and look up his reports, 100 00:12:47,970 --> 00:12:52,200 and I was very disappointed when the archivist was unable to bring them out of the stacks for me. 101 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:58,499 And to make a long story short, I got an interview to go behind the scene into the stacks. 102 00:12:58,500 --> 00:13:03,180 By the way, if ever you're in the American archives and you get the chance, take it. 103 00:13:03,660 --> 00:13:09,840 Because seeing the miles of shelving is in many ways even more impressive than the 104 00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:13,530 sort of neoclassical exteriors of the buildings in which these archives are housed. 105 00:13:13,950 --> 00:13:21,630 So it was fun. And there, tucked away under all these sort of great big leather bound volumes with these three locally sourced notebooks. 106 00:13:22,170 --> 00:13:27,540 And I realised I found the missing volumes and probably was the first person to 107 00:13:27,540 --> 00:13:32,760 consult them since they'd been repatriated from Damascus to the archives of DC, 108 00:13:33,030 --> 00:13:40,530 for all I knew. The last person to turn the pages would have been Mihai Vishakha or his son Seif, who succeeded an American vice consul. 109 00:13:40,950 --> 00:13:47,130 And I was literally shaking with excitement as I took these volumes back into the reading room of the archive, 110 00:13:47,580 --> 00:13:51,960 because I knew that I kind of stumbled on the things that archival historians dream of, 111 00:13:52,260 --> 00:13:56,460 but almost never have happened to them, which is finding lost material in the archive. 112 00:13:56,730 --> 00:14:05,040 And what a treasure trove that was. I recognised starting in 1859, just on the eve of the violence, that of the centre of this book, 113 00:14:05,430 --> 00:14:12,960 that his would prove to be the most important new documentation on a story that was, well, deeply rooted. 114 00:14:13,380 --> 00:14:18,180 And, uh, so one of those subjects that would be a perennial interest. 115 00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:26,780 It was, as it turns out, of no use to my doctor. There was nothing there on Ottoman experiences in Transjordan, the subject of that first book. 116 00:14:27,290 --> 00:14:32,900 But I came away. I photocopied every single page, knowing that Damascus was my second book project. 117 00:14:33,380 --> 00:14:41,990 Any, you know, ambitious doctoral candidate thinking about what they want to do to your tenure is thinking about the second book project already? 118 00:14:41,990 --> 00:14:45,950 That I had it. I had it in the shocker reports from the American Archives. 119 00:14:47,030 --> 00:14:57,439 So this was the project that I brought to Oxford in 1991 to take up the post that Avi and his colleagues very kindly offered me to Albert, 120 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:03,050 Ronnie's middle, etc. A centre where Albert was very present still came every Thursday, every week in term time. 121 00:15:03,650 --> 00:15:07,490 So someone that I really had the chance to spend time with and get to know. 122 00:15:08,300 --> 00:15:09,890 And in that first year I was here, 123 00:15:09,900 --> 00:15:18,790 Lila Fellows was just finishing up the manuscript for her book on the Damascus and Lebanese events, like occasion for War. 124 00:15:19,590 --> 00:15:27,560 I remember offering her might be short of material, since I was still deeply mired in trying to publish my own doctorate. 125 00:15:28,130 --> 00:15:32,300 And, uh, Lila didn't take me up on it. You realise when you get to the end of a manuscript, 126 00:15:32,300 --> 00:15:37,880 the last thing you want is three volumes of new sources to read your way through and try and integrate into your book. 127 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,630 But she will always give you credit for being a very generous, collaborative scholar. 128 00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:45,920 Don't believe a minute of it. Um, anyway, so. 129 00:15:46,580 --> 00:15:52,100 And yes, this was it. Very much the Albert Irani Centre with the history option that I inherited from Albert. 130 00:15:52,820 --> 00:15:59,660 As you all know, many of you from recent personal experience, the modern history of the Middle East starts in 1860 at Oxford. 131 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:05,360 So this was the project that I was very excited to be moving on to, but I still had to publish that doctorate. 132 00:16:05,870 --> 00:16:09,440 And for those of you who are currently in that stage of Trinity. 133 00:16:10,570 --> 00:16:15,340 Dissertations into books are not looking at anyone in particular. It took me seven years. 134 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:19,300 So, you know, patience and and hope for the good things to come from it. 135 00:16:19,540 --> 00:16:23,130 It was worth waiting. Thank you all. He's biased. 136 00:16:23,140 --> 00:16:32,320 He likes Jordan too. But when the book came out in 1999, that cleared my desk for me to begin to tackle the Damascus project. 137 00:16:33,190 --> 00:16:40,450 So I started reading the Shaka's reports. And, you know, they're written a little notebook in a very crabbed hand. 138 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:47,770 They're hard going. The language is very much the language of 19th century Damascus already. 139 00:16:47,860 --> 00:16:50,980 That creates a sort of opening into a lost world. 140 00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:54,070 You're having to adapt to a different turn of phrase, a different language. 141 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:59,620 And I had so much to learn about the people and the institutions and the places of Damascus through those reports. 142 00:17:00,250 --> 00:17:04,900 But I was working my way through the published primary sources, all the secondary literature. 143 00:17:05,320 --> 00:17:10,870 And the thing about this topic that was so, on the one hand, daunting, but on the other hand exciting, 144 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:15,100 was that this is a subject where you really get to stand on the shoulders of giants. 145 00:17:15,580 --> 00:17:21,280 When I look at the scholars who have worked on 1860 events in Mount Lebanon and in Damascus, 146 00:17:21,610 --> 00:17:26,830 I really got to draw on the best to name, obviously starting with Albert Hourani himself. 147 00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:31,000 But Kemal Salvi, the great historian of modern Lebanon at the time, 148 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:37,390 but also the great historian of Ottoman Syria, Philip Houry, my co supervisor at Harvard. 149 00:17:37,750 --> 00:17:42,070 Lalitha was herself a real mentor figure to me all of her time at Tufts, 150 00:17:42,610 --> 00:17:48,880 more recent scholars like my colleague Nasrallah Patton or something like this, he obviously and many, many more. 151 00:17:48,970 --> 00:17:54,760 But when you approached this subject, you you really do it with an ability to engage with the body of literature. 152 00:17:54,970 --> 00:17:57,270 It's quite rare in modern Middle Eastern history, actually, 153 00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:05,200 where we're still filling in so many gaps that it's quite a joy to stumble into one of these areas where there is such depth. 154 00:18:06,330 --> 00:18:11,330 I secured faculty funding to go after getting into this project for a couple of weeks, 155 00:18:11,340 --> 00:18:19,230 research in Damascus itself, and it was such a pleasure to be able to go into the archives in the daytime hours, 156 00:18:19,950 --> 00:18:24,000 to walk the streets where it all happened after archival hours, 157 00:18:24,450 --> 00:18:29,580 and then spent late nights in the very rich library holdings of the French Institute in Damascus. 158 00:18:30,810 --> 00:18:32,160 Don, you'll remember it well. 159 00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:40,080 And any of you who've been working in Damascus before the current civil war shattered normal life like scholarship and research. 160 00:18:40,890 --> 00:18:44,190 So it gave me this chance to do a deep dive engagement. 161 00:18:44,910 --> 00:18:52,590 But it was while I was there in Damascus at the institute, that I first learned of the archive of attacks on New York City and Washington, 162 00:18:52,590 --> 00:18:57,360 D.C., and Pennsylvania, for that was the 11th of September, 2001. 163 00:18:58,260 --> 00:19:05,520 And in a sense, the events of nine over 11 were to in some way get intertwined with my experience with this book and this story. 164 00:19:05,970 --> 00:19:12,870 I left Damascus at night, and it was a bizarre experience of going to the airport bags and had no ticket, 165 00:19:12,870 --> 00:19:17,340 trying to wheedle a ticket out of the airlines as every single international flight. 166 00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:23,550 Particularly those coming from the west. Cancel. Cancel. Cancelled. And you realise that this was going to be one of those. 167 00:19:24,370 --> 00:19:27,970 Moments that was going to change the world, and indeed it did. 168 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:31,300 It also changed my research program. But here we go. 169 00:19:31,930 --> 00:19:37,860 Having left Damascus that night, I was at Mesa the following year in a panel organised by our former student Martin Bunton. 170 00:19:38,020 --> 00:19:45,790 Roger Owen was on it. It was thinking about what scholars should be doing in light of the attacks of 9/11 and the emergence 171 00:19:45,790 --> 00:19:51,070 of an American led war on terror that had put the Arab and Islamic worlds in the crosshairs. 172 00:19:52,120 --> 00:19:57,400 And there was a sense that we academics needed to play a more public role. 173 00:19:58,410 --> 00:20:05,729 And my own idea there was to put Damascus down and to try and write a general history about the Arab world instead, 174 00:20:05,730 --> 00:20:10,020 to try and give English readers a sense of modern art history, 175 00:20:10,020 --> 00:20:15,030 as it's been experienced through Arab lives in Arab eyes, which is the genesis of the Arabs. 176 00:20:15,420 --> 00:20:20,770 So I put Damascus down, wrote the Arabs, and that was followed by the fall of the Ottomans. 177 00:20:20,790 --> 00:20:25,080 I need say no more on that, since Abby has spoken so generously about that. 178 00:20:25,590 --> 00:20:31,830 And it's only now, after decades, that I finally got the liberty to return to a project that, 179 00:20:31,860 --> 00:20:37,500 to be honest, I've never lost my excitement over since I first came across those reports. 180 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,250 Lost in the archives way back in 1989. 181 00:20:44,110 --> 00:20:48,670 It's a different book today than what I would have written had I written it back in 2001 2002. 182 00:20:49,730 --> 00:20:58,220 Syria is a different place. If I think of what might have influenced the interpretive lens I would bring to bear on my subject. 183 00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:08,440 You know. I would have spoken in the early 2000s about the success of Ottoman initiatives to spare Syria a sectarian. 184 00:21:09,770 --> 00:21:13,850 Order. So we had other problems. It had authoritarianism, baptism. 185 00:21:14,360 --> 00:21:19,190 It had, uh, an intolerance of political dissent. It had political prisoners in jail. 186 00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:26,930 It had had very violent encounters with the Muslim Brotherhood that led to devastations of whole urban quarters. 187 00:21:27,290 --> 00:21:32,740 How much of that comes to mind in 1982? Post 2011. 188 00:21:33,460 --> 00:21:39,280 Did I come at the subject in light of the current civil war in Syria? 189 00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:46,780 It would instead be about a return of sectarianism, about a country that fragmented very much along the lines of communities. 190 00:21:48,090 --> 00:21:56,160 Um, those communities in different coalitions, either for or against the government and each being driven by their greater fear. 191 00:21:56,970 --> 00:22:02,350 So many Christian communities throwing their lot in with the regime, murderous as it is of the Assad, 192 00:22:02,730 --> 00:22:08,190 because their greater fear with the Salafis, who had been extermination, ist towards minority communities. 193 00:22:08,820 --> 00:22:13,470 And they all had stories about the horrors that they'd suffered at the hands of their enemies. 194 00:22:13,710 --> 00:22:18,300 So a very divided and very sectarian Syria that emerged as a consequence. 195 00:22:18,930 --> 00:22:24,140 But even there, you know, what could you say about 1860 that is relevant to Syria today? 196 00:22:24,150 --> 00:22:33,629 I hope there is something in this book that will stand as a valuable lesson still about the ways that one can rebuild society, 197 00:22:33,630 --> 00:22:43,410 even after deeply divisive horror. But as I say that, I say that with the recognition that the scale is so different in the story I tell you, 198 00:22:43,410 --> 00:22:48,570 in 1860, 1500 houses were destroyed in a week of carnage. 199 00:22:48,990 --> 00:22:56,790 There was unprecedented violence. And you'll you'll smell the smoke coming from the pages as you read the accounts of those who survived that horror. 200 00:22:57,180 --> 00:23:05,670 So I don't mean to downplay it, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gives a figure between 2011 and 2018. 201 00:23:05,940 --> 00:23:13,110 So already six years ago, of 3 million houses partially or totally destroyed across Syria in this world. 202 00:23:15,050 --> 00:23:18,320 You know, 1500. 3 million. You do the maths. 203 00:23:18,590 --> 00:23:26,419 So it's very hard to know if there is indeed hope in the story of a Syria renaissance that might allow 204 00:23:26,420 --> 00:23:33,800 Syrians to take from this experience a vision of how they might get reconstitute civil society. 205 00:23:34,550 --> 00:23:41,360 In the end, as I read through the material, it was the analysis of the events as a genocidal moment where. 206 00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:51,080 The Christians communities in both Mount Lebanon and in Damascus, for very different reasons, had come to be seen to represent an existential threat. 207 00:23:51,710 --> 00:23:59,330 And faced with that Christian threat, extermination seemed a reasonable solution in both Mount Lebanon and in Damascus. 208 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:04,040 So this concept of a genocidal moment. 209 00:24:06,130 --> 00:24:10,180 I distinguish a genocide a moment from one where the attention of the crowd is to exterminate. 210 00:24:10,780 --> 00:24:14,200 But they are prevented from fulfilling their objectives, as happens in Damascus. 211 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,129 85% of the Christians will survive the events in 1860. 212 00:24:18,130 --> 00:24:28,480 No spoiler alert here from an event in which the casualty toll takes it beyond a point where extermination is actually being achieved to some degree. 213 00:24:28,780 --> 00:24:30,910 So a genocide genocidal moment versus a genocide. 214 00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:36,490 And it's that theme which seems to have made this book more relevant since the events of the 7th of October. 215 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:44,250 But there is less. How might Syria recover from what it's done since 2011 to? 216 00:24:44,460 --> 00:24:49,020 How might a society once take it to the brink by deeply divisive trauma drawn back from the brink? 217 00:24:49,770 --> 00:24:55,979 And so I think that is the takeaway lesson for the book, as it was to come out written at this moment in history, 218 00:24:55,980 --> 00:25:01,410 at this time in history, there is horror in the Damascus events, but there is hope to. 219 00:25:03,050 --> 00:25:05,840 Beyond questions of the present relevance of writing this story. 220 00:25:06,140 --> 00:25:14,180 It was also just the sheer pleasure of seizing the opportunity to write about a city whose history is so rich, 221 00:25:14,180 --> 00:25:17,780 and whose society is so rich and diverse as 19th century Damascus. 222 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,120 And that deep dive was just. So satisfying. 223 00:25:23,140 --> 00:25:29,770 This fascinating city seen through the eyes of very diverse contemporaries, starting with Michalka. 224 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:36,280 My main source, who is himself. You know, as I said, he is described by his contemporaries as the smartest, 225 00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:43,600 best educated man in the Arab world, and he is in so many ways an intellectual force. 226 00:25:43,630 --> 00:25:50,800 He's a polymath, he's an autodidact. He a man of very strong views and very strong opinions. 227 00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,170 So you have this kind of exalted notion that, you know, he married a 12 year old. 228 00:25:56,290 --> 00:26:02,649 Hello. And as I'm going through his list of lost property in the course of the events, 229 00:26:02,650 --> 00:26:12,130 I learned that our enlightened converts to Protestantism through the efforts of the American missionaries himself was a slave owner, 230 00:26:12,430 --> 00:26:17,050 and he's trying to desperately claim the money back for the slave of his that was stolen and impregnated. 231 00:26:17,170 --> 00:26:22,930 I need the motor back anymore. And you're trying to reconcile all these different elements of a complex personality 232 00:26:23,380 --> 00:26:28,180 who would fit so badly in our times and was so admired in his own times. 233 00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:40,630 So to be able to be taken on a tour of 19th century Damascus by people like Bishop was part of what made this such an exciting project for me. 234 00:26:40,870 --> 00:26:50,979 But not just me. Chaka. There have been a host of accounts by leading Muslim notables that have emerged in the years since the last major scholarship. 235 00:26:50,980 --> 00:26:57,340 People like, well, compulsorily published the, uh, The Diary of Al-Qaeda. 236 00:26:57,850 --> 00:27:02,230 Most people only focus on what do you have to say about the events itself. 237 00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,800 But he was put in jail for a year as part of the clampdown. 238 00:27:06,100 --> 00:27:09,430 And those accounts I've never seen anyone really delve into. 239 00:27:09,790 --> 00:27:13,689 And for the crime and punishment side of our story. 240 00:27:13,690 --> 00:27:17,139 You know, his account was absolutely breathtaking. 241 00:27:17,140 --> 00:27:23,410 And he is himself or he was a Sharif, uh, member of a family that descended. 242 00:27:23,410 --> 00:27:28,360 It's, uh, traced its lineage back to the Prophet Muhammad in the early 20th century. 243 00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:31,450 [INAUDIBLE] actually rise to become the titular sheriff for the head of the 244 00:27:31,450 --> 00:27:35,500 guilds of those descendants of the Prophet Muhammad in the city of Damascus. 245 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:44,740 So when I see the wonderful to get his take also published in the 1990s, that of the preacher of the venerable Umayyad Mosque, 246 00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:55,540 a man by the name of Alex, 20 we get very venerable Sunni family of Damascus, and his records going right back to 1840 are just quirky. 247 00:27:56,230 --> 00:27:59,140 They tell you funny things about the city and society. 248 00:27:59,350 --> 00:28:06,310 The things that he chose as news worthy to record were in themselves very telling about the man and his character. 249 00:28:06,700 --> 00:28:12,279 Um, so, you know, getting these rich characters, Ottoman officials like, for one question, you know, 250 00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:18,280 going to the Ottoman archives and reading through the reports filed at the time for what was writing huge, 251 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:25,030 long reports that are just full of wonderful details about the very delicate balancing act he is making, 252 00:28:25,390 --> 00:28:30,910 trying to walk a path between bringing order back to Damascus and keeping the European 253 00:28:30,910 --> 00:28:34,540 powers from intervening forcefully at the expense of all of its sovereignty. 254 00:28:35,230 --> 00:28:36,940 The governors of Damascus as well. 255 00:28:38,290 --> 00:28:43,809 I would say one of the novelties of this book, compared to the other ones I've written, is this cast of rich characters. 256 00:28:43,810 --> 00:28:50,530 They all knew each other, they all crossed paths, they kind of reference each other and they stay with you in the book right through to the end. 257 00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:55,120 In fact, when I get to the conclusion, I say goodbye to each one of them as they pass away. 258 00:28:55,420 --> 00:28:56,620 Under the circumstances, 259 00:28:56,980 --> 00:29:02,920 that leaves you feeling a little discouraging for the passing of a Damascus that they represented that was now gone and finished, 260 00:29:03,490 --> 00:29:10,030 but that they were nonetheless the survivors of 1860, able to pass on to the next generation a better future. 261 00:29:10,540 --> 00:29:21,910 Uh, in that I suppose, we find that there is hope to the story here of survival that I hope that you will all find makes reading the book a pleasure. 262 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,410 It does have a rough beginning, but it does have a happy ending. 263 00:29:28,510 --> 00:29:33,580 Bringing out a book, of course, is a complex work that involves debts to a lot of people. 264 00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:41,829 I'm going to start with the first people I turn to with the book idea, and that's my agents, Katherine Clark and the show talking here. 265 00:29:41,830 --> 00:29:42,370 Absolutely. 266 00:29:42,370 --> 00:29:53,080 Bryan Agency and George Lucas of the States did just a wonderful job in finding the very best publishers in both Britain and in the United States. 267 00:29:53,710 --> 00:29:57,400 And I say that to bring a blush to Simon Windows chief, who's here with us tonight, 268 00:29:58,030 --> 00:30:03,940 who took the book for Alan Penguin and really marshalled it through against the scepticism? 269 00:30:04,450 --> 00:30:08,530 Uh, a publisher who, supportive of my writing, 270 00:30:08,710 --> 00:30:14,350 still worried that this book might be more academic or monographic than the trade book meant for the general readership. 271 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:20,010 And I wanted to publish with Penguin out of Maine more than anybody else, and for the vote of confidence. 272 00:30:20,020 --> 00:30:25,090 So I'm going to really grateful. And it's so exciting to see the book out and so beautiful. 273 00:30:25,450 --> 00:30:32,439 So but I would say the same to Laura Hyman from Basic Books, where she here and to her or to your colleagues. 274 00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,370 I say Annabel Huxley here at Penguin and Liz, that's. 275 00:30:36,370 --> 00:30:46,030 So who are the people who get you the opportunity to do that article with the Ft or the interviews, or the time on radio or the book reviews? 276 00:30:46,450 --> 00:30:51,970 So it's just it's such a pleasure and such a joy to get to work with these publishing houses. 277 00:30:52,300 --> 00:30:58,150 Who now? This is my third book with both Basic and with Penguin and what a lucky man I am. 278 00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:07,380 I would like to then thank those who floated my book even before it was out with pre-publication endorsements. 279 00:31:07,710 --> 00:31:12,060 I've already read Margaret McMillan's obvious is no less generous. 280 00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:20,730 We are, if you like, a confederacy of scoundrels, the way that we all sing the praises of each other's books. 281 00:31:21,420 --> 00:31:30,630 I think this is more of an American thing. Every time I told Simon and Annabel about the endorsers that basic had lined up, 282 00:31:30,930 --> 00:31:34,140 they kept groaning, saying, but they would have been such good book reviewers. 283 00:31:35,610 --> 00:31:40,050 But that pre-publication vote of confidence makes me blush. 284 00:31:40,380 --> 00:31:48,270 But it's so lovely to see. And I want to thank Margaret, and I want to thank Ivy, but also Simon Sebag Montefiore, Peter Frank, a pen in America, 285 00:31:48,810 --> 00:31:54,780 as well as wonderful academic friends and colleagues like Libby Thompson at American Mailer for Law at Tufts, 286 00:31:55,170 --> 00:32:01,080 and Samuel Wyatt, one of the young doyen of Damascene historians. 287 00:32:01,350 --> 00:32:04,410 So lovely, if savvy, to give the seal of approval. 288 00:32:04,740 --> 00:32:11,010 Very nice if you presume to write about someone else's country, someone else's city, then to say that it's okay what you've done. 289 00:32:12,550 --> 00:32:14,320 This is such an Oxford book. 290 00:32:15,100 --> 00:32:23,100 Every book I've written has been an Oxford book with supportive colleagues, and I want to thank Walter, and I want to thank Mariam, 291 00:32:23,110 --> 00:32:27,790 and I want to thank Rayhan, who video this year, but also Michael and Lauren and Neil, 292 00:32:28,150 --> 00:32:32,170 who have abandoned us for greener pastures as they go on sabbatical. 293 00:32:32,780 --> 00:32:36,820 Uh, and I want to thank our amazing students. You're here in strength. 294 00:32:37,180 --> 00:32:42,490 And as I said, you know from experience that the modern history of the Middle East begins in 1867. 295 00:32:43,150 --> 00:32:46,630 This is very much for you. I want to thank my kids. 296 00:32:47,050 --> 00:32:52,780 You'll see some beautiful flowers there. But, Richard, Isabelle couldn't be here today in person. 297 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,530 And I think they've chosen the most beautiful way to be here in spirit. 298 00:32:56,740 --> 00:33:03,340 So I want to thank Richard. Is he as part of tonight saving my most important for last. 299 00:33:04,430 --> 00:33:08,110 Oh. Get out your handkerchiefs. 300 00:33:10,690 --> 00:33:16,420 Because this book is dedicated to not read for a good reason. Her support over the years. 301 00:33:16,690 --> 00:33:24,490 Whenever I travelled to do the research or the writing, what if I was galloping off for a couple of weeks of Damascus, going trotting off to Istanbul? 302 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,739 Or indeed what? 303 00:33:26,740 --> 00:33:36,370 I decided to spend a whole sabbatical year in Toulouse, and I got your fulsome support and regular visits to make sure I didn't feel too lonesome. 304 00:33:37,180 --> 00:33:42,339 And wonderful encouragement all the way through. And then it's just a genuine interest. 305 00:33:42,340 --> 00:33:48,400 You've taken to this subject from the very beginning. Diary, the regular conversations, the feedback on the early chapters. 306 00:33:48,940 --> 00:33:50,610 Always encouraging, always positive. 307 00:33:50,620 --> 00:33:56,920 You learned a long time ago that what we really want to hear is not the things we could get better, but that it's really brilliant. 308 00:34:03,540 --> 00:34:11,790 If this book has been 35 years in the making. Diary, you've been my inspiration for the past 31 of them, so thank you. 309 00:34:12,240 --> 00:34:16,110 This function publication date in the UK was last Thursday. 310 00:34:16,620 --> 00:34:19,799 Very exciting. And in the Americas. 311 00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,160 It was yesterday. But today. 312 00:34:24,570 --> 00:34:28,810 Here. In the middle, etc. The book is launched. 313 00:34:29,740 --> 00:34:34,030 I wish it well and I thank you for all of your good wishes. 314 00:34:52,700 --> 00:34:57,770 We we have a bit of time. We could have a conversation. 315 00:34:58,420 --> 00:35:02,810 Uh, or you could be civil or you can. Embarrassing. It's very, very highly civil. 316 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:15,620 So let's have a conversation. Right. But I want to thank you first for the fascinating account that you have given us of the writing of this book, 317 00:35:16,070 --> 00:35:20,330 the making of this book over a very long period of time. 318 00:35:21,410 --> 00:35:25,160 It was a really, truly interesting account. 319 00:35:25,430 --> 00:35:36,920 And you also spoke in a very engaging way about the process of writing history and the joys of writing history, particularly archival research. 320 00:35:38,060 --> 00:35:41,330 And you struck really lucky with these files. 321 00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:52,160 But one of the excitements about working in an archive is that you never know when you might hit something really big and important, 322 00:35:52,490 --> 00:36:02,720 but it's a real joy. And I have lectured in this room to the Enfield students about archival research, and I always say, what a joy it is. 323 00:36:03,260 --> 00:36:08,180 And I don't know what young people do these days for fun. They probably go clubbing if I had to. 324 00:36:08,630 --> 00:36:15,950 If I had to choose between going clubbing and working in archives, I would choose working in the archive any time. 325 00:36:15,970 --> 00:36:25,790 It's a no brainer. But you've had big discoveries in the archive, and if I think about your conclusion across the Jordan, 326 00:36:27,090 --> 00:36:34,070 you were one of the fortunate few to get access to material that other scholars had never seen before and can blow the lid. 327 00:36:35,030 --> 00:36:41,780 Of the first Arab-Israeli War and and the genesis of the State of Israel. 328 00:36:41,790 --> 00:36:47,360 So you know all about this. It was all in the Israeli archives. 329 00:36:48,020 --> 00:36:54,650 My first book was called Collusion Across the Jordan King Abdullah of the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine. 330 00:36:55,340 --> 00:37:05,120 And Israel has a state archive and a third Hebrew, which governs the review and declassification of official documents. 331 00:37:05,540 --> 00:37:11,900 Israel copy the British 30 rule and used to apply very, very liberally. 332 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:17,450 And Benny Morris, Ellen and I were the beneficiaries of this liberal policy. 333 00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:23,450 But, uh, Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't like critical history. 334 00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:27,740 So he closed down the reading room in the state archives. 335 00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:32,540 And now you can only apply online, and you have to know what you are applying for, 336 00:37:32,750 --> 00:37:39,200 which takes away all the fun of working in an archive and, uh, ordering physical files. 337 00:37:39,590 --> 00:37:45,540 So, um, when I worked on the book on King Abdullah, uh, everything was there. 338 00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:55,520 There were a lot of a series of secret meetings in there, about three or 4 or 5 different Israeli accounts of what happened at these meetings. 339 00:37:55,700 --> 00:38:04,250 And I, as a diplomatic historian, uh, simply reconstructed not just what was decided, but what the atmosphere, 340 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:14,630 the ambience and what was discussed and what was decided at the secret meetings that this is, uh, and the result was collusion across the Jordan. 341 00:38:14,720 --> 00:38:18,950 Can I pause you for one second there? I just wanted to know if anybody had any questions for Professor Sharon. 342 00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:24,890 I set you up for that one? Okay. 343 00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:35,570 Yeah. So I want to make one other comment about you and the last part of your talk, which is thanking people, the acknowledgements. 344 00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:39,140 It's what I call the end of a jumble sale. 345 00:38:39,500 --> 00:38:46,580 Kind of a speech. That's when the headmaster thanks everybody who helped organise the jumble sale. 346 00:38:48,020 --> 00:38:55,100 And you did it very elegantly. But I particularly want to highlight your thanks to the students. 347 00:38:55,370 --> 00:39:01,070 And I want to associate myself with the thanks to our students, to our brilliant students. 348 00:39:01,580 --> 00:39:09,230 And, uh, if you're an academic, there are two things in which you can distinguish yourself as a scholar and as a teacher. 349 00:39:09,530 --> 00:39:12,770 And you have distinguished yourself. You have excelled in both. 350 00:39:13,370 --> 00:39:22,370 And the Christopher Hill, the Marxist historian who was the master of Balliol College, 351 00:39:22,370 --> 00:39:26,370 once said, if we are not here for the students, what the [INAUDIBLE] are we? 352 00:39:28,340 --> 00:39:34,550 Well, I don't think the students have ever let go of you. So the question of the students, do you still allow Ivy to be associated with you? 353 00:39:34,580 --> 00:39:41,030 I mean, who wants to say, is this allowed? And can I ask you a serious question? 354 00:39:41,180 --> 00:39:47,690 I know is actually. You've written for history books. 355 00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:59,510 Do you have a philosophy of history? Do you have an overarching view of what history is about, the purpose of history, and anything about methodology? 356 00:39:59,720 --> 00:40:08,930 Because some eminent historians have written books towards the end of their career reflecting on on the writing of history. 357 00:40:09,230 --> 00:40:13,910 There is each column. His lectures were called What is History? 358 00:40:14,420 --> 00:40:19,280 Uh, Geoffrey Elton from Cambridge wrote The Historian's Craft. 359 00:40:20,090 --> 00:40:27,350 Richard Evans from Cambridge. His book is called In Defence of History and Our Own. 360 00:40:27,650 --> 00:40:32,510 Margaret Macmillan wrote a book on the use of celebrity history. 361 00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:41,240 Uh, so what is your general view about the philosophy of history and historiography? 362 00:40:42,350 --> 00:40:50,000 It's a really interesting question of, because I'm not philosophical about history, and I've got a very short attention span. 363 00:40:51,810 --> 00:40:55,340 Seriously. So it's got to keep my interest. 364 00:40:55,700 --> 00:40:57,620 And I think a lot of readers are that way too. 365 00:40:58,550 --> 00:41:05,810 So I mean, to me, it's the human connection in history that's always driven it for me, which is why I so enjoy reading, uh, 366 00:41:05,810 --> 00:41:10,730 first person narratives and why I always like going back to those who lived through 367 00:41:10,730 --> 00:41:15,800 the events to try and get the insights that come with eyewitness experience. 368 00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:21,980 I'm a narrative historian. I'm not a theoretical abstract historian. 369 00:41:22,700 --> 00:41:27,170 I'm not a structuralist. I've never really bought into large frameworks of history. 370 00:41:27,470 --> 00:41:32,330 I don't say that in any way dismissively, because most of the great historians in our field do just that. 371 00:41:32,990 --> 00:41:36,379 And in that sense, you know, I will fail the Academy. 372 00:41:36,380 --> 00:41:43,160 And never having put forward a big theoretical approach that is innovative in history in some way that others would imitate. 373 00:41:43,610 --> 00:41:46,610 You know, at that level, I'm not a contributor. 374 00:41:47,420 --> 00:41:56,710 Um, but I think. I write history that people can see the relevance to the world as it is today. 375 00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,640 I was interviewed by one of my undergraduates for chair. 376 00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:07,310 Well, recently the student newspaper and I made a throwaway line about, you know, the whole point is, 377 00:42:07,610 --> 00:42:15,320 if you want to understand the mess we're in today, you've got to you got to do some history. And what I write is kind of grounded in the. 378 00:42:16,730 --> 00:42:24,380 The present relevance of history being how it helps us to understand the issues of the present, the options moving forward, 379 00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:29,540 the lessons from the past, both things you might want to do and things you absolutely want to avoid doing. 380 00:42:30,690 --> 00:42:37,000 But. It's not a very rigorous theoretical or philosophical approach to history, if I'm honest. 381 00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:45,000 I recommend following on from these comments. I recommend to all of you. 382 00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:57,750 The essay that Eugene published in the F.T. the Weekend, the 4th of May on the lessons of history for the modern Middle East. 383 00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:13,170 And, um, you'll see how well he uses this approach of, of um, how will he use this history in order to explain current events? 384 00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:21,690 So this is something that you try the trick question to us to make sure that nothing less, because we, uh, 385 00:43:21,690 --> 00:43:29,310 you know, this is something we have in common, that we are not organised and, um, obsessed with methodology. 386 00:43:29,910 --> 00:43:35,670 Uh, we are narrative historians. In my case, it's I am a simple, uh, storyteller. 387 00:43:36,330 --> 00:43:45,180 But I used to be in the Department of International Relations with Miri and the director of research in international relations, uh, 388 00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:58,320 the director of research training, uh, asked me to give a lecture to our graduate seminar on my research methodology, and I said, I need 32nd. 389 00:44:00,870 --> 00:44:06,060 My research methodology is to collect all the materials on my topic and to write each other. 390 00:44:09,330 --> 00:44:18,450 So this is one thing we have in common. And the other thing that we have in common is that we were both born on the 31st of October. 391 00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:23,340 Yeah. And as was Zaha Hadid who gave us this lecture with you. 392 00:44:24,490 --> 00:44:34,830 Yeah. 31st October. It's a powerful day. And on this note, I'll bring the formal proceedings, not so formal proceedings to an end. 393 00:44:35,310 --> 00:44:39,030 And there is a book sale in the foyer. 394 00:44:39,810 --> 00:44:47,070 I'm going to ask you to stay in your seats, to allow Eugene to walk out and to sit down. 395 00:44:47,310 --> 00:44:52,200 And he will be able to sign a copy of his book to anyone who buys it. 396 00:44:52,500 --> 00:44:56,610 Now, I very, very strongly recommend this book. 397 00:44:57,140 --> 00:45:07,640 Uh, it's the best book I've read since Middlemarch. But also possibly even since the middle of February. 398 00:45:10,060 --> 00:45:13,570 Oh. I.