Lords of the Desert

Britain's Struggle with America to Dominate the Middle East

By: James Barr

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Guardian Book of the Day
New Statesman Book of the Year
History Today Book of the Year
Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
BBC History Magazine Book of the Year

'Bustles impressively with detail and anecdote' —Sunday Times
‘Consistently fascinating’ —The Spectator
'Beautifully written and deeply researched' —The Observer
'Barr draws on a rich and varied trove of sources to knit a sequence of dramatic episodes into an elegant whole. Great events march through these pages' —Wall Street Journal
Upon victory in 1945, Britain still dominated the Middle East. She directly ruled Palestine and Aden, was the kingmaker in Iran, the power behind the thrones of Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, and protected the sultan of Oman and the Gulf sheikhs. But her motives for wanting to dominate this crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa were changing. Where ‘imperial security’ – control of the route to India – had once been paramount, now oil was an increasingly important factor. So, too, was prestige. Ironically, the very end of empire made control of the Middle East precious in itself: on it hung Britain’s claim to be a great power.

Unable to withstand Arab and Jewish nationalism, within a generation the British were gone. But that is not the full story. What ultimately sped Britain on her way was the uncompromising attitude of the United States, which was determined to displace the British in the Middle East.

The British did not give in gracefully to this onslaught. Using newly declassified records and long-forgotten memoirs, including the diaries of a key British spy, James Barr tears up the conventional interpretation of this era in the Middle East, vividly portraying the tensions between London and Washington, and shedding an uncompromising light on the murkier activities of a generation of American and British diehards in the region, from the battle of El Alamein in 1942 to Britain’s abandonment of Aden in 1967. Reminding us that the Middle East has always served as the arena for great power conflict, this is the tale of an internecine struggle in which Britain would discover that her most formidable rival was the ally she had assumed would be her closest friend.

©2017 James Barr. All rights reserved (P)2018 Simon & Schuster, UK. All Rights Reserved.

Anglo-American rivalry in the ME in a nutshell

This book is a direct follow-up on the author's previous work, "The Line in the Sand", chronicling Anglo-French rivalry in the Middle East 1914-1948. Having listened to the previous one, I was eager to get into this. It didn't disappoint. The author is still superb in condensing very complicated processes to digestable form, and his analysis is always pointed, concise and well-grounded (the book version's footnotes and sources give you the impression that it is well-researched). The characters and their motives are again crystall clear, making this a more enjoyable piece of literature, than a great deal of actual fiction. The story it tells, while simple is also quite engrossing: how a retreating and an advancing imperial power, allies globally stick it to each other, whenever their interests clash (altough that format worked a bit better with the British and French, as they were more or less equal in terms of strength, while the great disparity between Britain and the US in the postwar period is clearly from the beginning - still, the author promotes facts over comfortable narratives).

What feels missing is the "natives". Although the various Arabic actors' points of view are clearly explained (be it individuals, like Nasser, or countries like Egypt), perhaps the book could have benefitted from inserting the "objects" of imperial rivalry more into the story. Or even outsiders, like the Iranese and the Soviets. The sources themselves show a picture of English-language orientedness, British and US archives, as well as English-language literature are listed, but not others (although the author clearly reads French). So, this is not an all-encompassing journey, but for what it is, it is very good indeed.

I was looking forward to the narration as well, which didn't disappoint at all. Peter Noble - as with the previous title - does a superb job, and deserves the ultimate praise for a narrator: he is not only clearly legible, but makes the story more, rather, than less interesting for the listener.