The first 100 books in our Middle East Studies list, by the numbers.
This week, with the publication of Mostafa Miawi's The Ottoman Scramble for Africa, the Press formally marks the 100th publication in its Middle East Studies list—to commemorate we're taking a look back on the first 10 years of our publishing program on the region. Celebrate the milestone with us—take 30% off our first 100 books in Middle East Studies between June 13 - 24, learn more about the origins and spirit of the program with a few words from our editor-in-chief, and check out the Middle East Studies Index below—a few quick stats that encapsulate the breadth and quality of our first 100 books.
2006:
The year the very first book in the list was published
With the help of Joel Beinin, Stanford professor and former president of the Middle East Studies Association, Wahl began the Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures series, in which Beinin’s book became the inaugural publication, not only of the series, but of the entire Middle East Studies list. Beinin continues to work as a series editor and has since published two other books with the Press—an edited collection and a Brief.
1 out of 4:
The approximate number of books in the list that have been recognized with honors and awards
Out of the first 100 books published in the Middle East Studies list, 22 garnered book prizes and other tributes. The accolades include 7 Outstanding Academic Titles, as chosen by Choice (Official Stories, Citizen Strangers, Time in the Shadows, Consuming Desires, The Autumn of Dictatorship, Ghosts of Revolution, and Beyond Sacred and Secular), 3 Independent Publisher Book Awards (Days of Revolution, Last Scene Underground, and Ghosts of Revolution), 2 Albert Hourani Book Awards (Palestinian Village Histories, Creative Wreckonings), 2 Palestine Book Awards (Refugees of the Revolution, The Rise and Fall of Human Rights), and most recently, the first-ever Sona Aronian Book Prize for Armenian Studies (Shattered Dreams of Revolution).
22%:
The portion of the list that focuses, in part or in whole, on Egypt
Egypt is the most frequently studied country within the Press’s Middle East Studies program—with Israel/Palestine at a close second, Turkey and the Ottoman Empire not far behind, followed by a swiftly growing number of studies on Iran.
152; 544:
The page counts of the shortest and longest books in the list, respectively
Squeaking in at a slim 152 pages, #iranelection—one of the three Briefs in the list—is the shortest book in the Middle East Studies program; Meanwhile, A History of the Modern Middle East—an exhaustive and heavily illustrated textbook—weighing in at 544 pages is the largest book in the list. (A sizeable gap in trim size makes the heft gap between the two all the greater).
38%:
The portion of history titles in the list—the most common genre of the Middle East Studies program
The most common disciplinary wheelhouse in the list is history, followed by anthropology, which constitutes nearly a quarter of all books published in the Middle East Studies program. Taken together, books on sociology and politics and law, constitute nearly a third of the list.
2:
The number of novels in the list—one literary, and one experimental
The Woman Who Read Too Much, a literary novel about a poetess caught up in the intrigues of Qajar Iran (published under the Press’s new Redwood Press imprint) and Last Scene Underground, an ethnographic novel about an underground avant-garde Iranian theater troupe in contemporary Iran, became the first and second works of fiction to be published the Middle East Studies list. Both books mirror the concerns of the broader Middle East Studies, raising questions surrounding justice, literacy, marginalized voices, how we make culture and how we tell history.
6 and 3/8:
Amount of shelf space, in feet, that the list in its entirety takes up on a bookcase
Yep. We measured.
Also see
Stanford University Press blog
The Press celebrates the publication of its 100th book in Middle East Studies.
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