British Imperialism and the ‘Tribal Question’: Desert Administration and Nomadic Societies in the Middle East, 1919–1936, by Robert S.G. Fletcher

In this fascinating book, Robert Fletcher offers an innovative approach to the study of the British Empire in general and British colonialism in the Middle East in particular during the inter-war period. Applying the ‘Transnational’ approach which is currently in vogue in historical studies, and drawing on rich archival sources—many untapped or under-used—Fletcher focuses our attention on a territory that hardly ever attracts historians: the desert. Sketching the collective biography of three prominent British administrators, who for many years worked to control the deserts stretching from Egypt (Claude Jarvis) to Transjordan (Frederick Peake and John Glubb) and Iraq (Glubb again), he pieces together British rule in the deserts.