In his initial work, British Imperialism and “The Tribal Question”: Desert Administration & Nomadic Societies in the Middle East, 1919—1936, British scholar Robert S.G. Fletcher (Lecturer in Imperial and Global History at the University of Exeter) posits a vibrant and critical re-evaluation of British Middle East imperial policy during the interwar period between the First and Second World Wars. Rather than focus on narrowly defined “state centric” political, legal and diplomatic issues derived from the Mandate inspired “boundary drawing in the desert” that characterize traditional studies of the region, Fletcher argues, correctly in my view, that the real narrative of interwar British imperial policy is found in the collective interactions of a corps of British administrators with their nomadic Bedouin tribal counterparts who occupied the Syrian “desert corridor” hinterland or frontier that connected the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf and which has remained largely marginalized by contemporary historians. Rejecting the traditional “state-centric” explanations as insufficient to overcome this shortcoming, Fletcher adopts a global transnational paradigm as a more effective vehicle to examine British interwar imperial policies and actions. This transnational methodology, Fletcher suggests, possesses several distinct advantages that the “state-centric” construct lacks. First, it allows for a more coherent and comprehensive explanation of British policy and actions during the interwar period. Second, it offers the prospect of initiating an engagement with “ideas behind differing policy proscriptions” as well as asking how “knowledge was shaped, transferred, and contested over the period” (6). Finally, transnationalism postulates a more transparent understanding of Britain’s imperial past, its relationship with the rise of Arab nationalism and the resulting establishment of the modern nation-states of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, and the impact of twentieth century technological advances (i.e., “modernity”) on the experiences of the regional nomadic Bedouin tribes. To achieve this, Fletcher skilfully uses each chapter of the book to develop and then illustrate his revisionist transnational thesis from the origins of British inter-war Middle East policies in 1919 to its gradual eclipse and eventual denouement after 1936. By treading this “path less travelled”, Fletcher claims to “avoid the trap of reading history backwards [or] privileging the histories of national projects that were by no means certain of success at that time” (7).

Central to Fletcher’s work is the nature of his research and sources. Given that one of his primary goals is the “reimagination of Britain’s empire as a networked entity, constituted by a variety of flows, people, objects, and ideas …” (10), the critical mass of his sources reflect this intent. It is not surprising, therefore, that the often utilized nationalist, political and diplomatic “official” materials that focus on the numerous political manoeuvrings and conflicts of the period are bypassed in favour of less well known government and non-government archives and manuscripts that emphasize the British administrative interactions with the regional Bedouin tribes as well as the difficulties of maintaining British imperial authority in such a vast and open frontier region. No less valuable are the papers of the Royal Central Asian Society (the Central Asian Society prior to 1931) and the Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, both of whom were “Arabist” in outlook and thus emphasized British-Bedouin (Arab) relationships as opposed to “official” governmental perspectives. Finally, Fletcher skilfully utilizes the personal papers, correspondence and commentaries of Charles Scudmore Jarvis (1879-1953), Frederick Gerald Peake (1886-1970), and John Bagot Glubb (1897-1986), important British Middle East administrators charged with maintaining British authority and control during the interwar period. Their integrated biographies form a critical aspect of Fletcher’s overall narrative. When these sources are combined with an equally broad range of printed primary and secondary materials (evident is his extensive bibliography plus numerous and frequently detailed explanatory footnotes), it is obvious that Fletcher has presented scholars and researchers with an important repository of future research possibilities.

In many ways, Fletcher’s work represents a long overdue re-examination of the nature of Western imperialism in the Middle East generally and British imperialism in particular. By rejecting the “state-centric” paradigm of most interwar Middle East studies for a transnational one, Fletcher allows the reader to part the curtains of anonymity and examine British imperialism not as ideology, but as part of a larger global process. At the same time, he is able to demonstrate the complex and gritty nature of imperialism as well as its impact on the local populations. Specifically, this involved the British requirements for maintaining control over a vast and largely un-defined desert frontier territory and its intersection with the needs of the various Bedouin desert tribes as they struggled with the demands of a modernity that disrupted their traditional transnational lifestyles. To this end, Fletcher’s contributions greatly enhance not only our understanding of the Middle East during the interwar era of the twentieth century, but he also provides an essential framework for analysing the contemporary twenty-first century conflicts now unfolding in Syria and Iraq. Clearly this book is an important and substantive work that belongs on the shelves of every academic library. At the same time, it should be included in the class syllabi of courses on recent Middle East history and politics and read by every individual interested in contemporary Middle East policy development.