Ep. 3: Volney’s Turkish plague

In Episode 3, Gašper Jakovac is hosting Prof. Ann Thomson (EUI) to discuss the writings of Constantin-François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney (1757–1820), a French anti-religious philosophe, who in the 1780s wrote two extremely hostile accounts of the Ottoman Empire. Travels Through Syria and Egypt (1787), and Considerations on the War with the Turks (1788) were written in a long tradition of European writing which saw the Turks steeped in ignorance, barbarism, and fanaticism. Find out more about how the plague highlights Volney’s anti-Muslim prejudice in today's episode.