Whose War? Whose Holy War? The Middle East and the First World War
A lecture by Mustafa Aksakal, Georgetown University
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Why did the Ottomans in 1914 enter a war that was then still a European conflict, one in which the Ottomans seemed to have no immediate stake? Why did they declare jihad (jihād)? Did they enter the war because Enver Pasha, the minister of war, was dazzled by German guns? Did the Ottomans declare holy war because Kaiser Hajji Muhammad Wilhelm II -- in the cheeky parlance of some Allied propagandists -- had ordered it?
Mustafa Aksakal's current research is focused on the First World War in the Middle East. Since completing his doctoral studies at Princeton University he has been awarded fellowships by the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. During 2011/2012 he will hold a Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship awarded by the American Council of Learned Societies. He is the author of The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008).
Part of James Gelvin's speaker series on the Historiography of the Middle East
Cost: Free and Open to the Public
For more information please contact
Johanna Romero
Tel: (310) 825-1455
romero@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu/cnes
