Aug 27—Introduction. Geography and Other Conditions.

Aug 29--The pre-Islamic Middle East and some Ancient History
    Read Text ch. 1
    And watch carefully this very accurate and useful eight-minute history of the Roman Empire on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hxwSzB_DI

Sep 1—Empires, Trade, and Mecca 
    Read Text ch. 2.
    For reference, and use in class, take a look at my handout on great Empires in the Middle East
    And watch this cool modern-day transit through the Suez Canal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwdU2cYRbnM
(you can skip the short part about souvenirs being sold aboard the container ship!)

Sep 3 Feb--Muhammad and Early Islam. 
Text ch. 3.

Sep 5—Conquest: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Others.
Text ch. 4

Sep 8—Map Quiz No. 1 at the beginning of class. Topic for today is: Caliphate!
    Read Text ch. 5.

Sep 10--Islamic Spain
no reading

Sep 12—Classical Islamic Civilization: Networks, Foundations, Mystics, Poets, and Historians 
Read Text ch. 7 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 8 (12th edition)--Same chapter but numbered differently in the two editions.

AND watch "The Sufi Way," a classic documentary on a branch of Islam, roughly 25 min.:
        Either at DailyMotion:  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xltjc1
        or Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3qE42Xo7Vw

Sep 15--The Rise of Shi'a and The Break-Up of the Caliphate, 1000 to 1400   
also text ch 6 (11th edition) OR Text chs. 6 and 7 (12th edition)
Also read this short article on the famous scholar and traveler, Ibn Battuta
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/big-history-project/expansion-interconnection/exploration-interconnection/a/ibn-battuta

Sep 17--The Crusades
Readings from An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior, pages TBA

Sep 19--The Aftermath of the Caliphate: Seljuks, and Others
Read Text ch. 8 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 9 (12th edition)

Sep 22—Exam 1

Unit Two--The Ottoman Empire and Others: From Crusades to World War II

Sep 24--The Ottoman Empire
    No reading

Sep 26—The Ottomans and the World
Venetian Ambassadors' Reports (a pdf of a book chapter)
    This is a substantial excerpt from the book Pursuit of Power:  Venetian Ambassadors' Reports (Reading quiz will count times 4)
this is a  pdf of a section of a reports on the Ottoman Empire by Venetian ambassadors. Please read all of the reports.
http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/history/htooley/PursuitPower1.pdf
It is still a bit pixellated at this size.  For a bigger pdf that makes the pictures clearer, this one is 17MB, but pretty clear:  here.

Sep 29--The "Near East" and the World: Orientalism, Politics, and Change
Read two chapters from Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (Read Chapters 44 and 45). Etext is online
at:  http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/TwaInno.html

Oct 1—Reform, Imperialism, and Nationalism
    Text chs. 10 and 11 (11th edition) OR Text chs. 11 and 12 (12th edition)

Oct 3—Zionism
Read this brief history of Zionism
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/zionism
And read carefully this very brief obituary for a prominent contributor to the Zionist cause.
Obituary for Peter Schweitzer

Oct 6—Map Quiz No. 2 at the beginning of class.  Topic for the day: The Young Turk Revolution and the Persian Constitutional Revolution.
no reading (but look ahead to the film Lawrence of Arabia, a very long movie, which you will do a double-value reading quiz over on Monday. See below.)

Oct 8—World War I and the Middle East I
    Read Text ch. 12 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 13 (12th edition)
    And look thoroughly through the website "The Forgotten:  The Armenian Genocide" http://www.theforgotten.org/site/intro_eng.html
(please look at and listen to this website thoroughly, spending at least an hour perusing all the text and seeing all the video clips, photos, etc. Careful: some of the information, especially the photographic elements, is quite gruesome.)
(optional: a very fine lecture on the Ottoman Empire and WWI, by Tulane Professor Ken Harl. Thirty minutes. Good details, especially on the military aspects:
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/the-ottoman-empire-total-war/

Oct 29—The Aftermath of World War II: The Context of Decolonization

Oct 31--Case Studies: Decolonization: Focus on Egypt

Nov 5—Beginning of class, Map Quiz No. 3.
Iran in the Wake of World War II. 
    Readings:  Hunt Tooley, "Engineering Tragedy."

Nov 7-- The Cold War, the Middle East, and Oil
    Text ch. 17 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 18 (12th edition)

Nov 10-Israel, Lebanon and Their Neighbors in the Seventies and Eighties

Nov 12—Arabs and Israelis and Other Matters
Before class, watch this Israeli movie from 2008, based on personal experiences.  It is called Waltz with Bashir, by Ari Folman, and it is available on Prime for $3.59, though you may be able to find it free somewhere else. Discussion of Waltz With Bashir. If you prefer, you can instead read the Ari Folman graphic novel, Waltz With Bashir. They contain the same material, but one in sort of dream cartoon form, and the other a graphic novel. Please watch, or read, this carefully and be ready for a 2X quiz and intensive class discussion.

Nov 14--Iran, the Shah, and the Revolution
Read the Wikipedia entry on the Iranian Revolution (Introduction only)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution.   
And read all of Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis.

Nov 19--The Iraqi Wars: 1980 to the Present
    Text ch. 19 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 20 (12th edition)

Nov 21--After 9/11
    Text ch. 20 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 21 (12th edition)

Dec 1--Arab Spring
    Text ch. 21 (11th edition) OR Text ch. 22 (12th edition)

Dec 3--Winners and Losers: Approaching the Present in the Middle East
   

Dec 5--Last Day of Class.  Disaster AND Business As Usual: Global Logistics, Destabilization,  Cartoons, and Refugees
    12th edition readers: Text ch. 22. For 11th edition readers, a pdf of the same.