This article is based on a talk given at the London School of Economics and Political Science on November 18, 2016. Europe is currently facing severe political challenges, some of which seem to be connected. Take for example, the refugee crisis and the rise of right wing populism in countries …

On November 21, 2016, the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford hosted the roundtable and launch of Public Culture and Islam in Modern Egypt: Media, Intellectuals and Society (London: I.B.Tauris, 2016) with myself and Morgan Clarke (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford) who is a social anthropologist …

As news of kidnappings and beheadings flowed out of Iraq this summer, it was easy to assume that Iraq had fallen into a state of primordial chaos. The brutal forces of tribalism and barbarity appeared to be triumphing, and the modern appeared to be giving way to the medieval. Such …