Department of Politics and International Studies
Dr Nathaniel George
You are viewing:
Key information
Key information
- Roles
- Department of Politics and International Studies Lecturer in Politics of the Middle East Centre for Palestine Studies Member
- Qualifications
-
PhD, Rice University
MA, American University of Beirut, Rice University
BA (Hons), University of Iowa
- Building
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office
- C218
- Email address
- ng33@soas.ac.uk
Biography
Nathaniel George is Lecturer in Politics of the Middle East at SOAS, University of London. He is a global political historian of the modern Arab world and United States foreign relations. His research and teaching focus on the relationship between revolution, counterrevolution, sectarianism, and empire. Prior to joining SOAS, he was a Raphael Morrison Dorman Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies. He holds a PhD in History from Rice University, an MA in Middle East Studies from the American University of Beirut, and a BA in Cinema from the University of Iowa.
His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, among others. His writings have been translated into Arabic, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and have appeared in outlets such as Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, The Fate of Third Worldism in the Middle East, Arab Studies Journal, Bidayat, The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, America in the World, 1776 to the Present, and Armed by Design/El Diseño a las Armas.
In 2024–25, Nathaniel convenes the undergraduate modules ‘Israel/Palestine and the International’ and ‘Government and Politics of the Middle East,’ and, at the postgraduate level, ‘Sectarianism and Colonial Difference’ and ‘State and Transformation in the Middle East.’ He has previously convened ‘International Relations of the Middle East’ (UG) and ‘International Politics of the Middle East’ (PG).
In terms of departmental service, he is the Convenor of the Middle East Pathway for the MSc in Politics and International Relations, the Undergraduate Programme Convenor and Academic Advising Coordinator, and the Postgraduate Student Experience Convenor (Term 1).
Office Hours Bookings: Book time with Nathaniel George
Research interests
Politics and history of the modern Arab world, particularly Lebanon, Palestine, and the mashriq; global and international history; revolution and counterrevolution; imperialism and colonialism; sectarianism, racism, and colonial social difference; the United States in the world.
His first book project, A Third World War: Revolution, Counterrevolution, and Empire in Lebanon, 1967–1982, lies at the intersection of global political and intellectual history, challenging depictions of the Lebanese civil war as an internal sectarian conflict or a proxy ‘war of others.’ Instead, it understands Lebanon as an important setting in an international civil war over the direction of decolonization and the shape of political representation in the Eastern Mediterranean.
