Lecture: Cities of the Levant: the past for the future?

Philip Mansel, author of Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, will speak about the cities of the Levant. The lecture will focus particularly on Smyrna (modern Izmir), Alexandria and Beirut, which under the Ottoman Empire and its successors were inhabited by Muslims, Christians and Jews. He asks how these cities functioned and explores their shared characteristics – diplomacy, trade, hybridity, pleasure, modernity and vulnerability – and what message the cities might have for today's mixed cities such as London, Paris and Dubai. Organised by the British Museum, Palestine Exploration Fund, Council for British Research in the Levant and the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//se000073?id=EVENT460286