Episode description

I am joined by Dr. Usamma Makdisi to discuss his most recent book "The Age of Coexistence". In this book Dr. Usamma Makdisi explores the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, "Age of Coexistence" describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the “ecumenical frame.” He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world.