An avid traveller with a gift for foreign languages, Professor Max Kortepeter spent decades studying and teaching about the Middle East. He taught at New York University for three decades and held faculty appointments at the University of Toronto and Princeton University. He has lectured around the world, often in his adopted languages. Other works written or edited by Kortepeter include: Ottoman Imperialism During the Reformation; The Ottoman Turks: Nomad Kingdom to World Empire; Atatürk and the Transformation of Turkish Culture; Oil and Economic Geography in the Middle East; The Modern Middle East: Literature and Society; and The Human Experience, a popular world history text. Professor Kortepeter holds a B.A. in American Studies from Harvard University, an M.A. in Islamic Studies from McGill University, and a Ph.D. in Middle East History from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.