British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question' Desert Administration and Nomadic Societies in the Middle East, 1919-1936

British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question' reconstructs the history of Britain's presence in the deserts of the interwar Middle East, making the case for its significance to scholars of imperialism and of the region's past. It tells the story of what happened when the British Empire and Bedouin communities met on the desert frontiers between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. It traces the workings of the resulting practices of 'desert administration' from their origins in the wake of one World War to their eclipse after the next, as British officials, Bedouin shaykhs, and nationalist politicians jostled to influence desert affairs.

Drawn to the commanding heights of political society in the region's towns and cities, historians have tended to afford frontier 'margins' merely marginal treatment. Instead, this volume combines the study of imperialism, nomads, and the desert itself to reveal the centrality of 'desert administration' to the working of Britain's empire, repositioning neglected frontier areas as nerve centres of imperial activity. British Imperialism and 'The Tribal Question' leads the shift in historians' attentions from the familiar, urban seats of power to the desert 'hinterlands' that have long been obscured.

Robert S. G. Fletcher, Lecturer in Global and Imperial History, University of Exeter

Robert Fletcher grew up in Colchester, Essex. He graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford, with a BA in Modern History and an MSt in Imperial and Commonwealth History. Between 2005 and 2007 he worked in Tokushima, Japan, before returning to Magdalen to read for a D.Phil. From 2009-10 he had a visiting fellowship at Princeton University. In 2011 he became a Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and the first Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Global History at the University of Oxford, where he helped establish a new Centre for Global History. He joined the University of Exeter as a Lecturer in Imperial and Global History in 2012. His research combines an interest in the histories of imperialism, nomadic societies and desert environments, and has been published in The English Historical Review and Past and Present.

Introduction: The View from the Frontier
Part I
1. Asking 'the Tribal Question': The Royal Central Asian Society in the World
2. Beating the Bounds: The Growth of British Desert Administration
PART II
3. Running the Corridor
4. Making the Desert Bloom? Development, Ideology, and the Future of the Steppe
PART III
5. Somewhat Light Soil: The Eclipse of British Desert Administration
Conclusion: Deserts, Nomads, and Empire in the Interwar World