Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations

Juan Cole

April 11 at 12 Noon (Point Lookout)

Topic: Engaging the Muslim World

Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context.

He has been a regular guest on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, and has also appeared on ABC Nightly News, Nightline, the Today Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many others. He has given many radio and press interviews. He has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has commented extensively on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, theIraq War, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. He has a regular column at Salon.com.

Professor Cole’s most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, March, 2009) and he also recently authoredNapoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East(Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Juan Cole continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, whether Sunni and Salafi or Shi`ite. He has command of Arabic, Persian and Urdu and reads some Turkish, knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. He has lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years, and continues to travel widely there.

A bibliography of his writings may be found here.