Customer Reviews

Arab War Lords and Iraqi Star Gazers: Gertrude Bell's The Arab of Mesopotamia

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This book is a reprint of two pamphlets about Mesopotamia and Anatolia written by the famous British orientalist Gertrude Bell during the First World War. Bell's writing is easy and the reader can glide through the discourse in only a few hours.

The book starts with a long forward by Paul Rich that provides historical context. He reviews British strategy in Mesopotamia in the Great War and the role of Bell's office. He also describes British regional strategies after the war.

Bell's short "Arab of Mesopotamia" follows with vivid descriptions of tribes and towns that she had visited before the war. She includes brief histories of tribal migrations around the Euphrates and Tigris, highlighting the relationship between the tribes in modern day Iraq and those still in modern day Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There is also a relatively detailed description of the Arab tribes living in Khuzestan, on the eastern side of the Shatt al-Arab. Saddam claimed he sought to liberate Khuzestan as one of his excuses in attacking Iran in 1980. Thus, a reader seeking detailed insights into the forces that move modern Iraqi politics would benefit from the background about these tribes, as they remain an influential element of contemporary Iraqi society.

This edition then includes Bell's pamphlet "Asiatic Turkey" which includes desciptions from her travels of pre-war Syria, Baghdad, Turkish and Iraqi Kurdestan and Anatolia. As in her Mesopotamian pamphlet, Bell's wartime bias against the Ottomans and Germans is evident troughout. That said, there are interesting, short vignettes of sites she visited before the war and brief discussions of local histories such as the Kurdish persecution of Christian communities in predominantly Kurdish regions. These too are relevant today: while Westerners may not remember these massacres, Iraqis most certainly do.

In sum, this book won't explain everything about modern Iraq, but it certainly would help a reader who wants to understand the currents underlying many current events in the country.

We thank you for suggesting other titles in the same interest group.
Have expanded our knowledge and found Gertrude Bell to be a fascinating
character.

Thank you for a good book at a good price and in good condition !