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

Within a single generation, between 1945 and 1970, America replaced Britain as the dominant power in the Middle East. By any standard, it was an extraordinary role reversal, and it was one that came with very little warning. Starting in the 19th century, Britain had first established themselves as protector of the sheikhdoms along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, before acquiring Aden, Cyprus and then Egypt and the Sudan. In the Great War in the 20th century they then added Palestine, Jordan and Iraq by conquest. And finally Britain had jointly run Iran with the Soviets since 1941 to defeat Hitler.

The discovery of vast oil reserves in Saudi Arabia, at a time when the United States’ own domestic reserves seemed to be running low, made America’s initial interest commercial. But trade required political stability. Its absence led the United States to look more critically at the conduct of her major ally in the region.

Added to this theatre of operations, the Zionists in Israel after World War One actively pursued a policy to establish and win an independent state for the Jews - which, spurred on by thousands of Jewish refugees from war-torn Europe, enabled them to build up the forces necessary to achieve power. How would Britain manage both Arab and Jewish positions and still maintain power? In 1943 they came up with an ambitious plan do so and in 1944 put it into action.

Lords of the Desert tells this story.

©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.