Prof. Amos Nadan is the Executive Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a faculty member in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at the University. He holds MA and PhD degrees in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in Middle Eastern Studies with intensive Arabic from the University of Haifa.
As Executive Director of the Moshe Dayan Center, Nadan advances an approach that integrates in-depth historical research with a practical understanding of the contemporary Middle East, including the use of open-source information tools for academic research and applications beyond academia. His experience in initiating and managing projects for over a decade outside academia is reflected in his work at the Dayan Center. This includes the transformation of the Center’s Arabic press archive—the largest of its kind in the world—into a large-scale digital repository currently undergoing digitization and enhanced accessibility; the establishment and development of an international MA program in Applied Middle Eastern Studies; the development of collaborations with international research institutes, and the creation of joint forums focusing on issues such as regional cooperation, Kurdish studies, and antisemitism in the Middle East. In parallel, internal research frameworks are being developed within the Center in these and other areas. As part of expanding the Center’s research scope, its cohort of researchers and fellows has been expanded.
Nadan’s research spans two complementary domains: the history of the modern Middle East, alongside the use of historical knowledge to deepen understanding of contemporary issues. In this context, he examines the relationship between past experience and present-day challenges, including economic sanctions, demographic policy, patterns of Arab journalistic discourse, long-term economic valuation, land ownership, as well as broader questions in political economy, geopolitics, and security in the Middle East. In parallel, his work addresses the historical development of economic and social structures in the region, the relationship between past and contemporary theoretical frameworks and historical knowledge, land tenure, peasant history, and long-term processes that have shaped the Middle East.
His articles are regularly published in leading international journals, including The Economic History Review, Continuity and Change, Middle Eastern Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Israel Affairs, as well as in Hebrew-language journals such as Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly, Innovations in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and Its Region, and Historia: The Journal of the Historical Society of Israel. His books have been published by Harvard University Press, Ashgate, Maarachot, and Resling.
