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The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar
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The Ottoman Gulf |
This neat little volume is a good companion to more general works about the creation of the modern Middle East, such as David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace. It traces the short-lived revival of Ottoman authority in the upper Persian Gulf, from its aggressive and promising start on the heels of the Tanzimat Reforms in the latter half of the 19th century, to its gradual retreat again in the early 20th. This re-expansion of a what had always been a rarely exercised authority was incomplete to begin with. It never reached as far as the British influenced 'Trucial States' (the future UAE), extending tentatively south only to frequently besieged Qatar, which traded one distant and somewhat ineffective protector for another.
The economic exhaustion of the Ottomans after 1876 meant that authority was dependent on the goodwill and support of local potentates. Such a situation was inherently unstable and as Ottoman resources were ineffectively thrown away by local stalking horses such the Rashidis of Ha'il, first one emir than another began to peel off in the direction of Britain or were swallowed up by the rising Sa'ud dynasty. Nonetheless, it was through this complex jockeying between Ottomans, British and local nobility that the modern Gulf arose, making this an essential volume for those interested in the immediate historical antecedents of the Arabian Gulf.
Posted by Tamerlane at September 9, 2006 10:58 AM
Filed Under: Gulf
, Ottoman Empire
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