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Sarmada, the first book from our Swallow Editions imprint, was launched at The Mosaic Rooms in October 2011
Haus Publishing translator Anthea Bell - On Publishing Asterix
9 October 2011 at the French Institute
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Peter Clark
The Hashemites: The Dream of Arabia
RRP: Price: £12.99
Haus Price: £10.00
Friends of Haus: £9.75
Publication Date:
2010-01-03
ISBN:
9781905791668
Format:
Hardback
Territory:
World
Category:
History, Makers of the Modern World
Pages:
224
Recommended
Books
Makers of the Modern World: The peace conferences of 1919-23 and their aftermath
By Robert McNamara
The story of the Arab Revolt and the Hashemite princes who led it during the First World War is inextricably linked in modern eyes to the legend of Lawrence of Arabia as portrayed in David Lean’s 1962 film. But behind this romantic image lies a harsher reality of wartime expediency, double-dealing and dynastic ambition, which shaped the modern Middle East and laid the foundations of many of the conflicts that rack the region to this day.
Arab nationalists claim that British instigation for the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire was a commitment to independence for the Arab people, but in this book Robert McNamara shows how the British cultivated the Hashemite Sherifs of Mecca more as an alternative focus during the First World War for Muslim loyalty from the Ottoman Sultan, who as Caliph had declared a jihad against the Allies when the Turks joined the Central Powers, than a leader of an independent and united Arabia. At the same time, the Sykes-Picot Agreement divided up the Middle East between British and French spheres of influence. The sense of betrayal that this caused has coloured Arab nationalists’ views of the West ever since.
The main countries of the Middle East – Jordan, Syria and Iraq – are all the creations of the post-First World War settlement worked out at the Paris Peace Conference. The story of the Hashemite dynasty at the Paris Peace Conference is the story of the birth of the modern history of a region that is now more than ever at the centre of world affairs.
A graduate of the National University of Ireland, Cork, Robert McNamara is a lecturer in International History at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. His teaching and research interests lie in the relationship between the Great Powers and the Middle East, and British foreign and imperial policy in the20th century. His publications include Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East from the Egyptian Revolution to the Six-Day War(2003).
Preview the book online here.
As featured on RTE Radio 1 - 'Today with Pat Kenny' on Friday 23rd April 2o10:
San Remo Anniversary
'The Italian resort city of San Remo is perhaps more associated with the holidaymakers and highrollers who visit its beaches and casinos than with international diplomacy. Nonetheless in April 1920, Allied leaders including the Prime Ministers of Britain, France and Italy chose this setting for the international conference that was to decide the future shape of the Middle East and we are still feeling the effects of it internationally today.
Two books are published on Monday, the 90th anniversary of that fateful conference looking at the outcome from very different perspectives. Under the subtitles, The Dream of Arabia and The Zionist Dream Robert McNamara and T G Fraser, examine the outcome from the Paris Peace Treaties following the First World War as part of the Makers of the Modern World series from Haus Publishing, London.
The series looks at the issues from the point of view of the leaders around the table. For Arabs, The Dream of Arabia was in the hands of Prince Feisal. For Jews seeking a homeland The Zionist Dream was in the hands of Chaim Weizmann.
Pat was joined from our Belfast studio by Robert MacNamara, lecturer in International History at the University of Ulster, Coleraine and and on the line by Tom Fraser, Professor Emeritus of History and Honorary Professor of Conflict research at the University of Ulster.'
Review from H-Diplo Review in America.
Click here to read the full review.
“Robert McNamara, a lecturer in International History at theUniversity of Ulster, has written a timely and rich study. Not only is theWestern library in need of many honest, veracious, elucidatory and analyticalstudies of the modern involvement in European powers in this crucial region,but the general public in the rest of the world is in need of some answershere.”