Gertrude Bell's Moment in the Middle East - by Liora Lukitz (Hardcover)

About the Book

A re-evaluation of the life and legacy of Gertude Bell in the Middle East.

Book Synopsis

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This book carefully examines Bell's published and unpublished letters, diaries, notes, and publications to reconstruct and reevaluate Bell's intentions and legacy in the Middle East in the aftermath of the First World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 regarding "Britain's mission" in the region as she previously understood the colonial enterprise. Centering her own experience and reflections in the context of wider events, this book adds nuance to perceptions of Bell as a one-sided agent of the British Empire and explores the legacy of her actions in Iraq and the West-Middle East relations today.

Review Quotes

"This thought-provoking study is by an experienced scholar of Iraq and of Gertrude Bell's life. Now Dr. Lukitz reappraises and refines her analysis of both the region and Bell's contradictions and significance for history and historians. Her writing is fortified by focusing on rich, untapped miscellaneous documents within Bell's archive alongside uncensored family correspondence. This makes compelling reading." --Angela V. John, Honorary Professor of History, Swansea University, UK

"Gertrude Bell remains an enigmatic and controversial person in Middle Eastern history after World War I. Through a close reading of Bell's letters and informed through the author's previous historical and biographical studies, in this 'Reappraisal' Lioara Lukitiz offers new and nuanced insights to Bell's role in the British responses to the emerging variations of nationalism and radical Islam which came to shape contemporary Iraq." --Jim Crow, Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK

About the Author

Liora Lukitz holds a PhD from LSE and an award from the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation that made possible the publication of three books and many articles. She is also the author of A Quest in the Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq (I.B. Tauris, 2006) and the upcoming title Ancient History and Technology, New Concepts of Communication (2025)