Research Interests

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, environmental history.

Courses Taught

• Survey lecture: Modern Britain and the Empire
• Britain and the History of Human Rights and Humanitarianism
• Capital and Empire
• Empire and Information
• Mass Consumption and its Critics in Britain, 1850-1950
• Graduate Colloquium: Modern Britain, Part I
• Graduate Colloquium: Modern Britain, Part II
• Modern Europe: The 20th Century (Graduate Colloquium)
• Industrial Revolution: The History, Ethics, and Consequences of Modern
  Economic Development

Books

• "Guns: The True History of the British Empire," current book project

Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, Mar. 2008).

Winner of the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award
Winner of the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize 2009
Winner of the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize

Articles

• “War, Wireless, and Empire: Marconi and the British Warfare State, 1896-1903,” Technology and Culture 51 (October 2010).
• “‘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).
• “Developing Iraq: Britain, India, and the Redemption of Empire and Technology in World War I,” Past and Present 197 (November 2007).
• “Air Control and the British Idea of Arabia,” in Penultimate Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain, ed. Wm. Roger Louis (London, New York, Austin: I. B. Tauris, 2007).
• “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia,” American Historical Review 111 (February 2006).
  
  • Winner of the 2007 Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies
  • Winner of the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies.

Selected Comment, Reviews, and Interviews

• Review of Stages of Capital: Law, Culture, and Market Governance in Late Colonial India, by Ritu Birla (Duke University Press, 2009), in Enterprise and Society: The International Journal of Business.
• Prof. Satia's lecture,“Iraq Then and Now: Lessons from Empires Past,” Stanford, October 2010.
• “Humanities Scholars Consider Contemporary Culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Stanford Report, Mar. 18, 2010.
• “The American Insurgency in Iraq?” History News Network, March 15, 2010
• Scholar of the Month interview, British Scholar online
• "Attack of the Drones,"Nation, Nov. 9, 2009.
• "Brilliant Insights That Led Us Astray in Iraq,” Financial Times, August 5, 2009, p. 11.
• “From Colonial Air Attacks to Drones in Pakistan,” NewPerspectives Quarterly 26:3 (Summer2009).
• “Iraqis are too shrewd to fall for an ‘invisible’ occupation,” Financial Times, July 2, 2009.
• Review of The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf, by James Onley, in Journal of British Studies 48 (July 2009).
• Interview on PRI’s The World: “The Debate over Drones,” May 27, 2009.
• “The Shadow of History Passes Over Pakistan,” Financial Times, May 20, 2009
• Review of Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914, by Martin Thomas, in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 10:1 (Spring 2009).
• Interview on Stanford Magazine, May/June 2009:“Lessons of War.”
• Interview on National Public Radio, Worldview: "Britain's 'Covert Empire' in Iraq during the Mandate Era," (WBEZ-Chicago), March 27, 2009
• “Painful Questions,” Times Literary Supplement, February 27, 2009, p. 23
• “The Forgotten History of Knowledge and Power in British Iraq, or Why Minerva's Owl Cannot Fly,” Social Science Research Council (SSRC) web forum on "The Minerva Controversy," October 17, 2008.
• “The Grim Reaper in Iraq’s Skies,” Stanford Report, September 24, 2008
• Review of Managing British Colonial and Post-Colonial Development: The Crown Agents, 1914-74, by David Sunderland, in Twentieth Century British History 19:3 (September 2008)
• “The True Story of the Iraqi Civil War,” History News Network, May 26, 2008
• “Spies in Arabia,” Middle East Strategy at Harvard blog, May 8, 2008
• “Lessons in Imperialism from Iraq’s Past,” review of Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country, 1914-1932, by Peter Sluglett, H-Albion, February 2008. [Reprinted in The College Quarterly (Fall 2007)].
• Review of Almost Englishmen: Baghdad Jews in British Burma, by Ruth Fredman Cernea, H-Albion, January 2008
• Podcast of interview at the Middle East Center Outreach Program, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, September 2007

Prof. Satia in the News

• Air Campaign set Unethical Precedent in Iraq
  The Stanford Daily, February 10th, 2012
• 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