Description
An explorer, archaeologist, scholar, writer, and policymaker, Gertude Bell was a colourful figure who played an outsize role in the history of the Middle East in the early twentieth century.
This book carefully examines Bell's published and unpublished letters, diaries, notes, and publications to reconstruct and reevaluate Bell's intentions and legacy in the Middle East in the aftermath of the First World War. It focuses on her correspondence with senior figures to examine the well-networked Bell as a policymaker in waiting. It also reappraises Bell's role in the formation of the Kingdom of Iraq, assessing her public statements in support of Faisal, Iraq's future king, against the doubts she expressed in private. Centering her own experience and reflections in the context of wider events, it adds nuance to perceptions of Bell as an agent of the British Empire and explores the legacy of her actions in Iraq today.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Notes on secondary sources
Chapter 1: Documents, links to the past.
Gertrude Bell, a life story
Miscellaneous, Reflections
Chapter 2 Biography as Art
A look into Gertrude Bell's inner world
Chapter 3: Gertrude Bell, Explorer.
'Wind and dust, a little rain...'
Ukhaydir, uncertainties
The vaulting system, continuities
Tours and impressions and a new book
Amurath to Amurath
Karbala
Baghdad
Samarra
Qal'at Sharqat
Mount Sinjar and Lalish
Tur 'Abdin, Mountain of the Servants of God
Carchemish
With Koldewey in Babylon
Chapter 4: Ha'yl Journeys
The Blunts' Pilgrimage to the Nejd
Ha'yl, Gertrude Bell's landmark journey
Baghdad, shifting times
Chapter 5: Gertrude Bell, Analyst: The Arab Question
Kut al-'Amara
The Peace Conference: on the sidelines
Palestine, Syria, and the Arab Bureau
“Syria in October 1919”, encounters
From Mesopotamia to al-Iraq, unfolding realities.
Chapter 6: Gertrude Bell, The Review
Sir Percy and the Gulf, strategies and connections
The Shi'i areas in the Review
The Kurdish areas in the Review
Administrative issues
Chapter 7: Gertrude Bell, Policy Maker
A matter of policy or administration?
Uncertainties, Gertrude Bell and Lord Hardinge
The Cairo Conference and the “Forty Thieves':
Schemes and Realities
King Faysal's parallel roads to Independence
The Karbala Conference, 'incomplete'
Chapter 8: The Ango- Iraqi Treaty, Texts and Subtexts
The Shi'i mujtahids and the elections
Subtexts unravelling
The Mosul Question: Wheat, tobacco, and oil
Chapter 9: Past Uncertainties and Certainties
'Desert Queen', or a 'Daughter of Empire'?
Archeology, as a quest
Archeology and Nationalism
The Mysteries of Ur
Hatra
Chapter 10: 'Desert Queen', or a 'Daughter of the Empire'?
Certainties and uncertainties in retrospect
The Arab movement , years on
With Lord Hardinge and Percy Loraine, the full picture in reverse
Judging Bell from today's perspective
The 'Invention of Tradition',
In a reverse Logic of Things
Impressions on 'Gertrude Bell's Moment in
Iraq' by leading Iraqi Personalities .
Bell, Education and al- Jamali's New Iraq
Product details
| Published | 20 Feb 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 248 |
| ISBN | 9780755655519 |
| Imprint | I.B. Tauris |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
