Ahmad Shokr is a historian of the modern Middle East. His teaching and research interesets include the history of capitalism, empire, and decolonization. He is the author of Harvests of Liberation: Cotton, Capitalism, and the End of Empire in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2025). The book tells the story of decolonization in Egypt through the lens of the country's prized export, cotton. In doing so, it explains how the midcentury dynamics of agrarian capitalism—which were steeped in the experience of depression and war—set the stage for the construction of a postcolonial republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser, where national liberation became equated with national development. 

Professor Shokr holds a Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from New York University. His writings on historical and contemporary issues have appeared in Arab Studies Journal, Critical Historical Studies, Middle East Report, Jadaliyya, and Economic and Political Weekly. He is also a contributor to several volumes, including The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt (2012); Dispatches from the Arab Spring: Understanding the New Middle East (2013); The Oxford Research Encylopedia of Asian History (2016—); Global Middle East: Into the Twenty-First Century (2021); and A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa (2021). 

At Swarthmore, Professor Shokr teaches about a variety of topics, including modern Middle East history, colonialism and nationalism, capitalism, environmental history, and social movements.