C W R Long

Richard Long is a linguist, historian and active speaker and writer on Middle Eastern subjects. He graduated from Cambridge with a First in Arabic and Persian and spent a year as a Fellow of the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University, Montreal. He then embarked on a career in diplomatic and cultural relations during which he lived in six Arab countries and Turkey, with three years in Baghdad as the highlight. (Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses caused the cancellation of a posting...See more

Richard Long is a linguist, historian and active speaker and writer on Middle Eastern subjects. He graduated from Cambridge with a First in Arabic and Persian and spent a year as a Fellow of the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University, Montreal. He then embarked on a career in diplomatic and cultural relations during which he lived in six Arab countries and Turkey, with three years in Baghdad as the highlight. (Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses caused the cancellation of a posting to Tehran.) Latterly, he spent a decade running the International Office of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and teaching Middle East History there and at Durham University. He has done consultancy work for the BBC and Longman and wrote the text of the booklet for the exhibition commemorating the first 25 years of the independent United Arab Emirates. See less