Office for Global Engagement

International Activities

International Publications

• Global: Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj, Columbia University Press, 2020., 10/06/2020
• Global, Turkey: İmparatorluk Mekke’si: Osmanlı Hicaz’ı ve Hint Okyanusunda Hac. Turkish translation of Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj by Yunus Babacan. Istanbul: Telemak Kitap, 2023. 464 pages. Available in paperback., 01/31/2023
• Global, Lebanon: إدارة الحج إلى مكة: موضوع تجاذب بين السلطنة العثمانية والاستعمار الأوروبي. Arabic translation of Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj by Rabi‘ Hindi. Beirut: Arab Scientific Publishers, 2022. 470 pages. Available in paperback and e-book formats., 02/21/2022
• Global, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Yemen: Saltwater Kingdoms: Fossil-Fueled Water and Climate Change in Arabia, under contract to University of California Press, 2 January 2024. The final manuscript is due to the press no later than 31 December 2025., 01/02/2024 WATER NATURE & CULTURE ECOLOGICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE BUILT ENVIRONMENT & COMMUNITIES CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY
• Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States: “Desert Dreams of Drinking the Sea, Consumed by the Cold War: Transnational Flows of Energy and Desalination from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf,” Environment and History 26, no. 2 (2020): 145-174., 05/01/2020 WATER CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY
• Global, India, Saudi Arabia, Yemen: “Hajj in a time of Cholera: Remembering India’s colonial past and Yemen’s tragic present,” World Is One News (New Delhi, India-based cable television and digital news group, a subsidiary of Essel Group/Zee Media conglomerate), 4 September 2017., 09/04/2017
• Turkey: Patrick Adamiak, Jeffery Dyer, and Michael Christopher Low, “The End of an Era: The Less Than Grand Opening of the New Ottoman Archives,” Jadaliyya, 25 April 2013. Also featured in Kamil Pasha., 04/25/2013
• Global, Saudi Arabia: “Global Public Health and the Ghosts of Pilgrimages Past,” Jadaliyya, 22 October 2012., 10/22/2012
• Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, State of Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen: Michael Christopher Low, Contributing author in Dona J. Stewart, The Middle East Today: Political, Geographical, and Cultural Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 2009). My contributions to this textbook came in the form of brief articles (textboxes) scattered throughout the volume. Collectively, I am the named, sole author of 12 short articles accounting for 22 out of approximately 200 pages of text or more than 10% of the volume., 12/24/2008

International Presentations

• Global, Saudi Arabia, United States: “Copying California: The Water Prince and the Cold War Roots of Saudi Mega Projects,” Middle East Studies Association, Montreal, 3 November 2023., 11/03/2023 WATER CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY
• Global, United Kingdom: “From Empires of Coal and Steam to the Petro-States and Saltwater Kingdoms: The Indian Ocean Roots of Fossil-Fueled Water in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf, 1850-210,” Indian Ocean in the Age of Empire lecture series, hosted by the Global History of Capitalism Project at the Oxford Global History Centre, University of Oxford, 30 October 2023., 10/30/2023
• Global, Saudi Arabia: “The Petro-State and the Saltwater Kingdom: Desalination, Extraction, and Climate Risk in Anthropocene Arabia,” American Society for Environmental History, Denver, 4 April 2024., 10/22/2023
• Global, Saudi Arabia: “Awwal Bait: A Journey Home,” A Public Conversation with Sumayya Vally, Artistic Director and Co-Curator of the Islamic Arts Biennale, Islamic Arts Biennale, Western Hajj Terminal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 17 March 2023., 03/17/2023
• Global, Saudi Arabia: “The Global Crisis of Cholera and the Traumatic Birth of Modern Hajj Infrastructures,” part of a roundtable conversation with Hussam Dakkak and Sumayya Vally, “Accommodations: A Touring Exhibition from the Saudi Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition (La Biennale di Venezia),” hosted in conjunction with the Saudi Ministry of Culture’s Diriyah Islamic Arts Biennale, January-April 2023, Hayy Jameel Art Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 17-18 March 2023., 02/25/2023

International Professional Service

• Global, United States: 2024 Conference Program Committee, American Society for Environmental History, 01/01/2024-04/07/2024 WATER NATURE & CULTURE ECOLOGICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE BUILT ENVIRONMENT & COMMUNITIES JUSTICE, EQUALITY & DIVERSITY AIR QUALITY
• Global, Netherlands: Editorial Board, Middle East Environmental History Book Series, Leiden University Press, 10/25/2022
• Global: Editorial Board, Journal of Global History (Cambridge University Press), 01/01/2019

International Media

• Israel, State of Palestine: Television interview, “Israel and Palestine have long, complicated history, University of Utah professor says” Fox 13, Salt Lake City, 13 October 2023., 10/13/2023
• Egypt, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia: Quoted in Robbie Corey-Boulet, “Water-starved Saudi confronts desalination’s heavy toll,” France 24, 17 September 2023. Also syndicated to Al-‘Arab, Al-Monitor, Barron’s, Deutsche Welle (DW), The Times of India, Voice of America, and Yahoo News., 09/17/2023 WATER ECOLOGICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE CLIMATE CHANGE ENERGY
• Global: Fact checking consultation for James Wood (staff writer and book critic), “Outbreaks and Uprisings in Orhan Pamuk’s “Nights of Plague”,” The New Yorker, 24 October 2022., 10/24/2022
• Saudi Arabia: Review/Notable Books Notice, Arabic Translation of Imperial Mecca, Al-Majallat Al-‘Arabiyya (Saudi Arabia), 29 August 2022., 08/29/2022
• Global, Qatar: Review/Feature Article on Imperial Mecca, “تاريخ الحج من مناطق المحيط الهندي والتنافس على الحجاز بين الإمبراطوريات” [“The History of the Hajj from the Regions of the Indian Ocean and Competition over the Hijaz among the Empires”], Al-Jazeera (Arabic), 19 August 2021. , 08/21/2022
• Egypt: الحج : ظاهرة دينية واقتصادية واجتماعية وسياسية, Al-Ahram (Egypt), 8 July 2022., 07/08/2022
• Global, United Kingdom: Review/Feature Article on Imperial Mecca, “إمبراطورية الحج: حروب البريطانيين والعثمانيين على بئر زمزم” [“Empire of the Hajj: The Wars of the British and the Ottomans over the Well of Zamzam”], Al-Quds Al-‘Arabi (London-based Arabic newspaper), 8 July 2022. Available from: https://www.alquds.co.uk/إمبراطورية-الحج-حروب-البريطانيين-وال/., 07/08/2022
• Global, United Kingdom: Quoted in Matt Maynard, “Iceberg towing: a bizarre ‘solution’ to the freshwater crisis,” Geographical, 12 June 2022., 06/12/2022 WATER NATURE & CULTURE CLIMATE CHANGE
• Lebanon: Review/Notable Books Notice, Arabic Translation of Imperial Mecca, Nida' al-Watan (Lebanon), 5 May 2022., 05/05/2022
• Egypt: Review/Notable Books Notice, Arabic Translation of Imperial Mecca, Al-Dostour (Egypt), 1 April 2022., 04/01/2022

Countries and Regions of Interest

• Bahrain
• India
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Qatar
• Saudi Arabia
• Turkey
• United Arab Emirates
• Yemen