Synopsis
For forty years, from the capture of Baghdad and Jerusalem in 1917 to the debacle of Suez, Britain was the paramount power in the Middle East. Thereafter, and until 1971, she maintained a presence in the area, most significantly in the small but strategically important states of the Persian Gulf.
In this book, first published in 1963 and now reissued in a new edition, Elizabeth Monroe traces the course of this episode, establishing how British supremacy came about, what purposes it served, and how and why this quasi-empire disappeared. In a new final chapter, tellingly entitled “Nightfall”, she assesses the disastrous Suez adventure in the light of the most recent evidence and deals with the disposal of Britain’s Middle Eastern hegemony on the coasts of Arabia.
As Peter Mansfield points out in his new foreword, there are not many books of up-to-date history which stand the test of time, but this one does so triumphantly. Elizabeth Monroe observed the exercise of British authority in the Middle East from its early years and was personally acquainted with most of the leading actors. “Although she enjoyed an insider’s view of the British Establishment, she has never lost her ability to examine its activities with detachment. This, combined with an unusual energy for research, a piercing eye for inaccuracy or prejudice and a pithy, jargon-free prose-style, resulted in a book which is essential reading not only for students of the Middle East but for anyone interested in imperial history and the shifting balance of world power.”
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