If twentieth-century stories of Jews and Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East are usually told separately, Recording History demonstrates that we have not been listening to what brought these communities together for so long: Arab music. With this book, Christopher Silver provides the first history of the music scene and recording industry across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and offers striking insights into Jewish-Muslim relations through the rhythms that animated them. This interactive talk will introduce the Ashkenaz community to some of the North African musicians who helped define their era.

Christopher Silver is the Segal Family Associate Professor in Jewish History and Culture in the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University. His first book Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth Century North Africa was published in 2022 with Stanford University Press and was the winner of the 2023 L. Carl Brown AIMS Book Prize in North African Studies. His numerous articles on history and music have appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Jewish Social Studies, and Hespéris-Tamuda. He is also the founder and curator of the website Gharamophone.com, a digital archive of North African records from the first half of the twentieth century.