This lecture has been postponed to a later date.
The Redwood is pleased to welcome back Dr. Michael Barry as he reflects on the history of the Middle East in a four-part lecture series, from the late 1400s to present day. A recognized scholar in Middle Eastern languages and art, Dr. Barry also served as an international humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, and after many years teaching in Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, is now head professor at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.
Lecture Two: The Anglo-Russian Great Game, 1798-1907
The second lecture, beginning with Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, Russian annexations in the Caucasus as of 1800, and the British conquest of India capped by occupation of Delhi in 1803, discusses the titanic rivalry and several outright wars both direct or proxy between Britain and Russia (once Napoleon’s threat to both powers eliminated in 1815) to control the three surviving Islamic kingdoms still separating their domains: Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, reduced to buffer-States striving fitfully to modernize in order to preserve their independence.
