Usman Butt is multimedia television researcher, filmmaker and writer based in London. Usman read International Relations and Arabic Language at the University of Westminster and completed a Master of Arts in Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.
Book Club: Seldom researched, the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (1915-1918) was one of WWI's greatest atrocities. Drawing on first-hand testimonies, Taylor Brand's 'Famine Worlds' offers an important analysis of what it's like to live through trauma.
Book Club: Estella Carpi's latest book looks at how humanitarian aid in Lebanon is entangled with diverse forms of development, and how the murky and often opportunistic politics of defining crises affect the displaced.
Book Club: Jaber Baker and Ugur Umit Ungor's 'Syrian Gulag' presents a compelling case for accountability in Syria looking into the different prisons and charting the regime’s repression from 1970 until the 2020s through years of detailed research.
Book Club: Drawing on the works of prominent scholars of the time, Elaheh Kheirandish documents the scientific pedigree of two "cities of the stars": Baghdad and Isfahan. Her book helps reintegrate the Eastern tradition into the scientific narrative.
Book Club: Avi Shlaim's memoir is an elucidating account of split worlds under duress. Deeply researched, Shlaim reveals the factors behind his leaving Iraq for Israel, and how the Israeli secret services stoked tensions to facilitate this exodus.
Book Club: Boris Johnson's tumultuous tenure as Britain's Prime Minister continues to be felt. Adored by some, derided by others, Johnson's legacy as one of Britain's more bubbling statesmen has nonetheless shifted the playbook of British politics.
The history of Arab Americans dates back to the late 19th century with the arrival of Syrian and Lebanese diaspora from the Ottoman Empire. The New Arab traces the history of this disparate group and how they fared in a rapidly changing environment.
Book Club: Every culture and civilisation has had to wrestle with the question 'who and what do we trust?'. In this expansive, interdisciplinary study of medieval authority and belief, Peter Adamson looks back in time to look forward to the future.
Book Club: The largest land-based empire of all time, the Mongols conquered territory indiscriminately, including the Arab and Muslim civilisations of the Near East. But how did the two worlds interact, and did they end up learning from each other?
Book Club: As Tunisia descends deeper into Kais Saied's dictatorship, David L Johnson's translation of Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi's 1993 manifesto for a modern, reformist Islam is a stark reminder of what Tunisia was versus what it now is.
