Mostafa Minawi

Overview

I am interested in the history of experience at the end of the Age of Empire. In short, experiential history of global events. I study the global history of imperialism seen primarily through the lens of Ottoman-, Turkish-, and Arabic-language archival records and the everyday lived experience of people living in Southeast Europe, Northeast Africa, and West Asia. I am interested in uncovering how the region's people experienced the often violent transition from Ottoman imperial rule to Western colonial rule, and on to the age of the nation-state.

Research Focus

As a fellow at the National Humanities Center (2024-25), I am working on my third book project on Ottoman-Ethiopian Relations and the Geopolitics of Imperialism in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea Basin. It uncovers an untold history of Ottoman imperial ambitions along the Red Sea coast stretching from Djibouti to the Suez and the northern Somali coast from Bab el-Mandab to the tip of the Horn of Africa. It will introduce the Istanbul-Addis Ababa imperial axis of power that existed in dialectic tension with the other North-South axes that stretched from European imperial capitals to the African coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The result will be a new global history of competing imperial strategic interests between 1878 and 1918.  What do we learn about the history of the Red Sea and the Somali coasts if we weave the history of regional powers into the larger diplomatic and military histories of European empires in Africa? How can we recast Ottoman imperialism in the region once we understand inter-imperial relations from an Ottoman government’s perspective, not only through its competition with the Great Powers but also its relationship with its counterpart in Africa?  What do we learn about the nature of global imperialism during this period, if we shift the archival focus to the untapped Ottoman records on Africa? How did locals experience and remember European, African, and Ottoman imperial intervention, and what role did race and racism play in the construction of Ottoman and Ethiopian imperial attitudes? 

Parallel articles and other intellectual projects include upcoming pieces on race in the Middle East, Whiteness outside of the West, and experiential history in the telling of global events focusing on the experiences of those living outside of Western Europe and North America.

 

Awards and Honors

• Fellow, National Humanities Center (2024-25)
• The Alfred Howell Chair in History and Archeology Visiting Faculty -  American University of Beirut (2019-20)
• Senior Fellow, Research Center for Anatolian Civilization (ANAMED) – Koç University (2018)
• Fellow, Remarque Institute – New York University (2016)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, EUME - Wissenschaftkolleg zu Berlin  (2011-12)

 

Publications

Books

 Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022)

• İstanbul’u Kaybetmek: Arap-Osmanlı Emperyalistleri ve İmparatorluğun Sonu (Istanbul: FOL, 2023)

 

The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz (Stanford, CA. Stanford University Press, 2016). 

• العثمانيون و التدافع حول إفريقيا: الامبريالية والدبلوماسية من الصحراء الكبرى الى الحجاز 

   (Africa Institute in Sharjah, 2023) 

• Osmanlılar ve Afrika Talanı:Sahra'dan Hicaz'a İmparatorluk ve Diplomasi (Istanbul: Koc University Press, 2018).

   

 Ottoman-Ethiopian Relations and the Geopolitics of Imperialism in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea Basin (In progress – Under contract with Stanford University Press).

 

Some Peer-Reviewed Articles

• “International Law and the Precarity of Ottoman Sovereignty in Africa at the End of the 19^th Century,” The International History Review (May 2020) <DOI:10.1080/07075332.2020.1765837>
• “Telegraphs and Territoriality in Ottoman Africa and Arabia During the Age of High Imperialism,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 18 (2016): 576-587.

• “Beyond Rhetoric: Reassessing Bedouin-Ottoman relations along the route of the Hijaz Telegraph Line at the end of the nineteenth century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58 (1-2) (2015): 75–104.

   

Podcast & Print Interviews for Losing Istanbul

 

Sample Public History Engagement 

• “The Fall of the Ottoman Empire” animated Video. (EDP 2025), TED-ED: Lessons Worth Sharing.

• “The Ottoman Empire by Train” documentary. Consultant and Contributor on this Channel 4 – UK.

• “Afkira Conversation with Mostafa Minawi” videocast, Afikra: A Communal Exploration of Arab History and Culture             

• “The Rise of the Ottoman Empire” animated video, TED-ED: Lessons Worth Sharing.

   

Sample Newspaper Op.Eds.

• A regular contributor to TheHill.com (2015-present.)
• “How Turkey’s Fight Against ISIS Advances its War Against the Kurds,” Wall Street Journal (Jul 30, 2015)
• “Don’t Partition Iraq Along Ethnic Lines,” Haaretz (Jul 18, 2014)
• “Ortadoğu Tarihinin Müşkül Gerçeği,” Evrensel (Jul 13, 2014)

In the news

• Pulitzer Prize-winning author from Jerusalem to speak Oct. 10
• National Humanities Center selects two A&S professors as 2024-25 Fellows
• Minawi wins Middle East Studies Association book prize
• Center advances social sciences research with spring grants