Erin O'Halloran

Research Topic

Cairo Between Worlds: Britain, India, and the Middle East, 1935-1942

My thesis explores various layers of interaction between Egypt, India and Great Britain before and after the outbreak of World War II. These relationships were centered on the city of Cairo—an emerging global metropole during the interwar years—and involved diverse networks of British officials, and Egyptian, Arab, and Indian nationalists. I seek to explain the development of different kinds of relationships between these groups during the later 1930s, and account for their transformation amidst the crisis of war. 

Before coming to Oxford I worked as a political analyst, translator, and editor in Beirut, Lebanon for five years. I completed my Master's in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut in 2011 and worked in a variety of research and communications capacities thereafter. Most recently, I was a Publications Editor at the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a United Nations agency. 

Supervisors: Margaret MacMillan and Eugene Rogan