From Baghdad to Oxford: Avi Shlaim and the Deconstruction of the Israeli Narrative

From Baghdad to Oxford: Avi Shlaim and the Deconstruction of the Israeli Narrative is a recent book by Amal Al-Jubouri, published in 2025. The work examines the life and scholarship of the historian Avi Shlaim, exploring the relationship between his personal background, his academic trajectory, and the broader debates surrounding history and competing narratives in the Arab–Israeli conflict. The book offers a critical and analytical reading of Shlaim’s intellectual production. Born in Baghdad and later established as a prominent academic at the University of Oxford, Shlaim occupies a distinctive position within contemporary historiography. Through an examination of his writings and arguments, the book seeks to deconstruct the dominant Israeli narrative and to investigate the processes through which such narratives are constructed and sustained. At the same time, it engages with the historical and political discourses that shape contemporary understandings of the conflict and of events in the modern Middle East. Combining elements of intellectual biography with critical analysis, the book provides a reflective exploration of the development of Shlaim’s ideas and situates them within broader discussions of historical memory, identity, historiography, and political narrative. In doing so, it highlights the complex relationship between individual memory and collective historical narratives.