Alan Mikhail

Alan Mikhail
Professor of History
203-432-1353
320 York St, New Haven, CT 06511-3627

Alan Mikhail is a historian of the early modern Muslim world, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt. His research and teaching focus mostly on the history of empires and environments. Mikhail is the author of Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt and Environmental History (2017), The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (2014), and Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (2011). He is also the editor of Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa (2013). He is currently writing a book on the Ottoman Empire and world history.

Mikhail’s publications have received numerous recognitions, including the Roger Owen Award of the Middle East Studies Association, the Alice Hamilton and Leopold-Hidy Prizes of the American Society for Environmental History, the Wayne D. Rasmussen Award of the Agricultural History Society, the Ömer Lütfi Barkan Prize of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, and Yale’s Gustav Ranis and Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prizes.

Courses: 

He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of the early modern Muslim world and Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire, and environmental history.

Select Publications: 

Books:

Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

The Animal in Ottoman Egypt.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History.  Studies in Environment and History.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Select Journal Articles:

Climate and the Chronology of Iranian History.”  Iranian Studies 49 (2016): 963-72.

Ottoman Iceland: A Climate History.” Environmental History 20 (2015): 262-84.

Oriental Democracy.” Global Environment 7 (2014): 381-404.