Remembering the Great War: World War One and the Making of the Modern Middle East

World War I transformed the region we know today as the Middle East, expanding some empires while others crumbled, creating new borders, and forging new political identities. Dr. Annalise J. K. DeVries of Samford University will examine accounts from Maadi-Tura, an Egyptian prisoner of war camp, to explain how the war experience created new points of conflict, particularly as the Ottoman Empire fell and the British and French looked to assert authority over the region.

DeVries is assistant professor of history at Samford University. She previously taught at the University of Alabama and Birmingham-Southern College. Her professional interests include global and comparative history, imperialism, modern Egypt, the modern Middle East, and women’s and gender history. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her dissertation research, which looks at Cairo, Egypt’s cosmopolitan society in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This event will be held in the Linn-Henley Research Library/Arrington Auditorium/4th floor. Refreshments will be served.

This program is presented in cooperation with Auburn University, the Alabama World War One Centennial Committee, and the United States World War One Centennial Commission.