The Reign of the Locusts: Borders, Environment, and Power in the Ottoman Empire

Samuel Dolbee’s “Locusts of Power – Border, Environment and Power in the Ottoman Empire” reconstructs the history of the modern Middle East by following the path of a pest – the locust. The book, which strikingly examines the relationships between humans, nature, and power in Ottoman Jazira, reveals the complex link between environmental history and political transformation.

Dolbee describes processes such as the settlement of nomads, the forced migration of sedentary populations, and the transition from empire to nation-state through environmental disasters, making locusts a symbol of both destruction and resistance.

The work narrates the conflict between the boundless power of nature and humans and the political order established in a broad historical cross-section, extending from the late Ottoman period to Republican Turkey and the formation process of Iraq and Syria.

“This book deserves to be a classic, firmly rooted in the fertile intersection of Ottoman, post-Ottoman, and environmental studies.”
— Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“An original work that sheds light on the neglected history of Jazira.”
— Alan Mikhail, Yale University