Academia Archives - Centro Primo Levi New York

Sephardic Genealogy: Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their World

October 8, 2026
Academia, Communities

Jeffrey S. Malka, Avotaynu Publishing, 2003 In this profusely documented work, the author explains how to trace Sephardic ancestry through archives as ancient as 12th century Spanish notarial records or as recent as today's country repositories. Taking us on a…

The Flood in Florence, 1966

November 15, 2016
Academia, Articles

The Flood in Florence, 1966: A Fifty-Year Retrospective, University Library of Michigan Nearly five decades have passed since the Arno River in Florence, Italy, flooded its banks on November 4, 1966, breaching the basements and first floors of museums, libraries,…

The Ottoman Catalogue is a curated section of our Bookstore featuring English-language classics and new scholarship on Ottoman history and culture. It explores the impact of nationalism on the Ottoman Empire, the consequences of its decline and dissolution for Europe, and the histories of peoples, lands, religions, and their books before the concept of “the Middle East” emerged as a political and geographical term.

Following two decades of research, programming, and publishing on the history of nationalism, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, Centro Primo Levi moved its attention to the period before 1922, exploring the stories, ideas, exchanges, and transformations that occurred over six centuries of Ottoman rule.

The era that ushered in the rise of the workers movement, totalitarianiasm, the Spanish Civil War, the fall of three empires, the shaping of modern nation-states, and the establishment of an economy based on industrial and scientific growth, banking, and warfare, also brought to an end cultures, concepts of time, language, and rituals that today’s observers often struggle to appreciate.

Much of this history has attracted modest attention from American and English-language scholarship. However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in original and translated research and publications, showcasing this period from various angles and perspectives. As the “Middle East” storms into our societies, challenging the vocabulary of public life, as well as its ethical and epistemological paradigms, we feel that attempting to move our gaze back into this past may help us refine our sensibility and interpretational tools.