With a passion for accuracy, a flair for drama and a talent for hard work, educator Audrey Shabbas and the staff of AWAIR are changing how American teachers teach about the Middle East—and creating new tools to help them.

What Makes Audery Run

Crops, climate, cuisine and culture are closely linked, and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan's Lebanese-Irish background, and the foods he ate growing up, help him understand how plants can simultaneously be "calories, cures and characters in tribal legend."

Alexander couldn't quite conquer Central Asia, so he colonized it. The result was a Bactrian kingdom that bridged the cultures of India, Iran, Greece and China—and whose history we know largely through the handsome coins its rulers minted.

Five centuries of Ottoman rule brought Bulgaria Islam itself and a tradition of tolerance. The last years of the communist regime brought repression and expulsion. In newly democratic Bulgaria, the future may yet follow the older tradition.

The Minority’s Minority

Rodney Searight's collection of Middle Eastern drawings and watercolors developed during the 1960's and 70's into a unique record of the cultural interaction of East and West, and his own expertise and connoisseurship grew with it.