Redefining Balkan Nationalism - Albanian Identities at the End of the Ottoman Era (Hardcover)

Isa Blumi received his Ph.D. from NYU in 2005, working under the joint program in the History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies departments created in 1996. His dissertation was a comparative history of the complex interactions between imperial authorities and the inhabitants of Ottoman Albania and Yemen. Isa has continued to explore these issues in two recently completed books, Redefining Balkan Nationalism: Albanian Identities at the End of the Ottoman Era, and Consequential Imperialism: How Peasants, Shepherds and Merchants in Arabia and the Balkans Changed the World, both of which initiate a more critical discussion about whether or not historians should study the modern Balkans and the Middle East through the prism of ethno-national and sectarian categories. Arguing that the misuse of analytical categories has long-term consequences to how current events are understood in the media and by policy makers.