World War I in Mesopotamia - The British and the Ottomans in Iraq

The Mesopotamian campaign during World War I was a critical moment in Britain's position in the Middle East. With British and British Indian troops fighting in places which have become well-known in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, such as Basra, the campaign led to the establishment of the British Mandate in Iraq in 1921. Nadia Atia believes that in order to fully understand Britain's policies in creating the nascent state of Iraq, we must first look at how the war shaped Britons' conceptions of the region. Atia does this through a cultural and military history of the changing British perceptions of Mesopotamia since the period before World War I when it was under Ottoman rule. Drawing on a wide variety of historical and literary sources, including the writing of key figures such as Gertrude Bell, Mark Sykes and Arnold Wilson, but focusing mainly on the views and experiences of ordinary men and women whose stories and experiences of the war have less frequently been told, Atia examines the cultural and social legacy of World War I in the Middle East and how this affected British attempts to exert influence in the region.

Product details

• Authors: Nadia Atia, Atia Nadia
• Publisher: Tauris, I.B.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2015
• EAN: 9781784531461
• ISBN: 978-1-78453-146-1
• No. of pages: 280
• Dimensions: 144 mm x 218 mm x 30 mm
• Series: Library of Middle East History; Library of Middle East History; Bloomsbury 3PL
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; European History, First World War, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Middle East / Iraq, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Middle Eastern history, Iraq, c 1914 to c 1918 (including WW1), c 1914 to c 1918 (World War One period), HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / World War I