Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Sep 12, 2023
Inventing the Middle East
Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism
Summary
The “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored. Few question the origin of the term or the boundaries of the region, commonly understood to have emerged in the twentieth century after World War I.
In Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022), Guillemette Crouzet offers a new account in Inventing the Middle East. The book traces the idea of the Middle East to a century-long British imperial zenith in the Indian subcontinent and its violent overspill into the Persian Gulf and its hinterlands. Encroachment into the Gulf region began under the expansionist East India Company. It was catalyzed by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and heightened by gunboat attacks conducted in the name of pacifying Arab “pirates.” Throughout the 1800s the British secured this crucial geopolitical arena, transforming it into both a crossroads of land and sea and a borderland guarding British India’s western flank. Establishing this informal imperial system involved a triangle of actors in London, the subcontinent, and the Gulf region itself.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel.
Your Host
Morteza Hajizadeh
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
Comments