About the Author

Jerzy Zdanowski is a Researcher and Professor at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw, and has been involved in Middle Eastern studies since 1978. He has served as a Visiting Scholar in various institutions, including Kuwait University, the University of Jordan, Cairo University, Sheikh Zayed University at Abu Dhabi, Princeton University (Senior Fulbright Scholar), the SOAS, and Maison Mediterranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme in Aix-en-Provence, and has lectured at Princeton, Columbia, Hebrew University, Haifa, Berlin, Trinity College at Dublin University, and The Great Mosque of Sultan Qaboos in Muscat. His publications include books and articles on the modern Middle East, and especially the Arabian Peninsula. The most recent are Speaking With Their Own Voices: The Stories of Slaves in the Persian Gulf in the 20th Century (2014); “The Right to Manumit and British Relations with Ibn Saud and Persia in the 1920s” in Journal of Contemporary History (2014); Slavery and Manumission: British Policy in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the First Half of the 20th Century (2013); “The Manumission Movement in the Gulf in the First Half of the Twentieth Century”, in Middle Eastern Studies (2011); “The Saudi Shi’a and Political Reform in Saudi Arabia” in Political Change in the Arab Gulf States: Stuck in Transition (edited by M.A. Tetrault, G. Okruhlik, and A. Kapiszewski; 2011).