NOTE: This episode is an audio version of our video “Toby Craig Jones: US Empire and the Middle East” from June 1, 2026. Click here to watch the original video.
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This episode features historian Toby Craig Jones discussing the historical context of the current Iran conflict and the ongoing events in the Persian Gulf as it pertains to both the Middle East and the United States.
This episode is the fourth in a series that aims to educate the public about the history, past and present, of the US relationship with the Middle East from different perspectives. This lecture series is part of a broader research initiative "Rethinking US Middle East Policy: Past, Present, and Prospects", a collaboration between Security in Context and the Arab Studies Institute.
Toby Craig Jones is associate professor of history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He teaches courses on global environmental history, energy, and the modern Middle East. During 2008-2009 he was a fellow at Princeton University's Oil, Energy, and the Middle East project. From 2004 to early 2006 Jones worked as the Persian Gulf political analyst for the International Crisis Group. His research interests focus on the environment, energy, and the history of science and technology. He is the author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2010), Running Dry: Essays on Energy, Water and Environmental Crisis (Rutgers University Press, 2015), and is currently working America's Oil Wars (under contract at Harvard University Press). He has written for the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of American History, Middle East Report, Raritan Quarterly Review, The Nation, The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, and elsewhere. In 2015 Jones was recognized as a Rutgers Chancellor’s Scholar for distinguished scholarship.
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