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Priya Satia
Associate Professor of Modern British History

Biography

Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, political economy of empire, and environmental history.

Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004.  She is currently Associate Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.

Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2008) has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.

Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Review and Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies. 

Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, "Guns: The True History of the British Empire."

Key Works

• "Guns: The True History of the British Empire," current book project
• “War, Wireless, and Empire: Marconi and the British Warfare State, 1896-1903,” Technology and Culture 51 (October 2010), forthcoming.
• “‘A Rebellion of Technology’: Development, Policing, and the British Arabian Imaginary,” in D. K. Davis and Edmund Burke, III, eds., Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East (Ohio University Press, forthcoming).
• “War, Wireless, and Empire: Marconi and the British Warfare State, 1896-1903,” Technology and Culture 51 (October 2010), forthcoming article.
• "The Forgotten History of Knowledge and Power in British Iraq, or Why Minerva’s Owl Cannot Fly." Social Science Research Council, October 17, 2008.
• Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East. Oxford University Press, 2008. Winner of the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.
• "Developing Iraq: Britain, India, and the Redemption of Empire and Technology in World War I." Past & Present, 197(1):211-255, 2007.
• "The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control and the British Idea of Arabia." The American Historical Review, 111.1, 2006.

Prof. Satia in the News

• Stanford Experts: How 9/11 Has Changed The World 
  Stanford Report, August 31, 2011
• Panel Discussion on "The Public Uses of History and the Global War on Terror"  
  Inside Higher Ed, January 12, 2011
• Iraq Then and Now: Lessons from Empires Past
  Human Experience lecture video, October 21, 2010
• The American Insurgency in Iraq?
  History News Network, March 15, 2010
• Scholar of the Month interview
  British Scholar online, November, 2009
• Attack of the Drones
  The Nation, October 21, 2009
• Did Britain Wreck the World?
  Newsweek, August 14, 2009
• Final veterans death consigns Great War to history books
  National Post, August 7, 2009
• [Opinion] Iraqis are too shrewd for an 'invisible' occupation
  Financial Times, July 1, 2009
• [Opinion] The Shadow of History Passes Over Pakistan
  Financial Times, May 20, 2009
• [Blog] If a scholar makes a prediction in a forest of analysts, does anybody listen?
  Foreign Policy, May 17, 2009
• Review: Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East
  Project Muse, May 2009
• Cultural Explanations of State-Sponsored Violence in the Middle East
  H-Net Reviews, May 2009
• Lessons of War: How Stanford experts put their studies to work in the corridors of power
  Stanford Magazine, May/June 2009
• In this essay for the Thinking Twice opinion column, Prof. Satia argues against the U.S. aerial strategy in Iraq
  The Human Experience at Stanford: Thinking Twice, September/October 2008
• The True Story of the Iraqi Civil War
  George Mason University's History News Network, May 26, 2008
• Stanford Scholar Explores Lessons From Britain's Past in the Middle East
  Business Wire via PRWeb, March 20, 2008
• Recipient of the Walter Love Prize for the best scholarly article of 2006 in any field of British studies
  North American Conference on British Studies, 2007

Audio and Video

• The debate over drones
  PRI's The World, May 27, 2009
• Conversation on Spies in Arabia and the U.S. occupation of Iraq
  Worldview (WBEZ), March 27, 2009
• Podcast #11 - An Interview with Priya Satia
  Middle East Center Outreach Program, University of Utah, November 1-16, 2007
• Interview about the use of British Air Control in Post World War One Iraq (audio interview)
  Odeo, October 30, 2007