Maan Abu Nowar, a member of a well-known family from Salt, joined the Arab Legion in 1943. In 1948, as a young lieutenant, he participated in the Palestine war. In 1957, as a colonel and commander of a brigade group, he was tried for involvement in a conspiracy against King Hussein (instigated by his cousin, Ali, the chief of the General Staff) but was acquitted. He retired from the army in 1972 as a major-general and commenced a second career as a diplomat and politician. Simultaneously, he pursued a third career—that of a prolific historian. In 1988, he gained a D.Phil. at Oxford for the study that constituted the basis of his book History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: The Creation and Development of Transjordan 1920–1929 (1989). His two recent books are a chronological and conceptual continuation of his first work.

The first volume covers the years 1939–47, a period that the author calls “a golden age for the Hashemite Kingdom” (p. 271). In those years the Jordanians faced not only the challenges of World War II, from which they emerged with a strong sense of national unity; they also passed the test of a civil society, governed by the rule of law.

The author records the main developments year by year in the regional theater (the course of the war, inter–Arab relations, the Greater Syria scheme) and in Jordan (the Arab Legion, domestic politics, relations with Britain, educational and social progress). Against the backdrop of anti–British sentiment, Abu Nowar reiterates that Emir Abdullah was the only Arab leader to support the British during World War II, even at the nadir of their plight.

The author tends to move unsystematically from one topic to another. In the chapter on 1942, for example, he jumps from blackout regulations in Amman to the Biltmore conference and Zionist endeavors to establish a Jewish brigade within the British army to judicial reform and educational achievements (pp. 86–88). This makes each chapter a collection of episodes rather than part of an integrated historical narrative and analysis. Nevertheless, one may find the given data (including the information stored in the book's seventeen appendixes) an invaluable source of knowledge on the state-building process in Jordan. The book sheds light on the making of the administrative and bureaucratic institutions, the development of the armed forces and a parliamentary framework, the emergence of an opposition, and the formation of political public opinion. It also illuminates the crystallization of Arab and local national identities and the creation of an infrastructure from which an indigenous class of intellectuals and professionals later emerged.

This volume also meticulously unfolds Abdullah's efforts to persuade the British to grant his country independence. Nevertheless, the author fails to provide a conclusive explanation of why the British eventually did so in 1946.

The second volume covers a shorter yet more eventful and complex period: the 1948 Arab–Israeli war and its aftermath. Its first half discusses in great detail the military moves and engagements by the Jews with the Arab Legion and the other Arab forces. In this respect, the book is a mine of minute information on the location, size, composition, equipment, and deployment of the belligerent forces during every stage of the war, including the number of casualties. These descriptions are the book's most important contribution. In some cases, the author even records the role of units as small as platoons in the military encounters.

Abu Nowar's treatment of the political aspects of the war is less comprehensive and more selective. He is rather vague on the activity of the Arab League prior to the Arab invasion of Palestine, and he fails to mention, for example, the league's resolution of April 1948 (in response to Jordan's announcement of its intention to invade Palestine) that any Arab intervention would be considered a purely temporary expedient. He hardly refers to the Palestinians as a political factor after May 1948 or to the Arab Legion's efforts to contain their activity.

In his discussion of the post-war years, Abu Nowar focuses on the practical and formal annexation of the West Bank and analyzes its impact on the domestic arena, the situation along the armistice line with Israel, and the growth of the Arab Legion. The professionalism and high standards of the latter contributed to the stability of the kingdom through trying times and at certain critical crossroads, such as the assassination of King Abdullah.

Abu Nowar severely criticizes most of the parties involved in Palestine: the Arab leaders were “nothing more than Effendis of the Ottoman style and mind” (p. xi), their armies were badly led and performed poorly in the battlefield. The Arab League is accused of total disharmony, and its creation, the Arab Liberation Army, proved a complete failure. The author also criticizes the Palestinian Arabs and their leadership for being ungrateful to King Abdullah, who saved them from the Jews. The latter are portrayed as criminals and terrorists who committed heinous and inhumane crimes (pp. 23–26).

Abu Nowar is ambivalent toward the British. He accuses them of pursuing a systematic pro–Zionist policy and blames them for their occasional reluctance to reciprocate Abdullah's loyalty. Yet he appreciates their contribution to the advancement and improvement of the Arab Legion. He attributes many of the British omissions or moves that were regarded as anti–Arab to American or Jewish Zionist pressure (see, e.g., p. 190).

The author does not spare even leading Jordanian politicians from his criticism (pp. 369–70). He is particularly critical of the Palestine-born prime ministers Tawfiq Abu al-Huda and Samir al-Rifai, whom he calls “imported effendis” who limited the freedom of the Jordanian citizens. The former is even accused of being a British agent (Struggle for Independence, pp. 66, 71, 155).

The only uncontested hero of Abu Nowar's books (save for the Jordanian army) is King Abdullah. He is portrayed as a true Arab patriot devoid of any personal interests or ulterior motives. It is probably the author's desire to keep Abdullah's nationalistic image untarnished that causes him to utterly ignore the king's ties with the Jewish Agency. He fails to mention Abdullah's meetings with Elias Sasson in 1946 and with Golda Meyerson (later Meir) in 1947 and in 1948, as well as other numerous meetings and correspondence. Nor is there any intimation of the meeting between senior (British) Arab Legion officers with a Hagana official in early May 1948 or of the alleged collusion or the unwritten agreement on the partition of Palestine between Abdullah and the Jews.

The post-war negotiations between Jordan and Israel, including the official talks under United Nations auspices in Rhodes, are referred to only partially and selectively (Jordanian–Israeli War, pp. 293, 299, 305, 313). Abu Nowar admits that after the conclusion of the armistice agreement Abdullah wanted to negotiate and achieve a peaceful settlement (p. 364). There is no reference, however, to the actual conduct of these negotiations (which in early 1950 yielded the draft of a peace agreement and later the draft of a five-year non-belligerency pact), save for quotations from reports of British officials (pp. 337–39). The text of the second agreement is given in Appendix H of Jordanian–Israeli War, but nothing is said about the course of the negotiations, who initiated them and why, what were the proposals of each party, and why this endeavor eventually failed. As far as relations with Israelis are concerned, it seems that Abu Nowar the historian succumbs to Abu Nowar the politician.

The technique of quoting British correspondence when treating sensitive issues is used extensively by the author. Abdullah's readiness for a cease fire (in May and June 1948), the legion's retreat from Lydda and Ramle, Jordan's opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian Arab administration in Palestine, and Abdullah's intention to annex its occupied sections are but a few examples. In his frequent use of long quotations from reports by Bevin, Kirkbride, Glubb, and so on, with hardly any comment or explanation Abu Nowar evades another historian's intellectual duty: to confront and analyze King Abdullah's views, intentions, and conduct.

Another flaw in the study is the numerous mistakes and inaccuracies (mainly but not exclusively in the first book). Al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini arrived in Baghdad in October 1939, not in January 1940 (Struggle for Independence, p. 35). Jamal al-Husseini and Amin al-Tamimi were captured and deported by the British in late 1941, not in 1940. George Antonius died in 1942, not in 1940 (p. 39). King Faruq did not replace Ali Maher as prime minister with Nahas Pasha but with Hassan Sabri. Nahas became prime minister only in early 1942, replacing Hussein Sirri (p. 41). The Alexandria conference convened in September 1944, not in 1945 (p. 154). Nuri Said was assassinated in 1958, not in 1968 (p. 140). Abd al-Karim Qasim was a lieutenant colonel in 1948, not a lieutenant (Jordanian–Israeli War, p. 170). The Palestinian national Congress in Nablus was held on 28 December, not 28 October, 1948 after the Congress of Jericho (p. 267). These are only a few instances in which the books could have benefited from more stringent copyediting and proofreading.

The main source that the author uses is the files of the British Public Records Office. To a lesser degree he relies on Jordan's Official Gazette, newspapers, interviews, and unpublished material. The list of his secondary sources is rather elementary and lacks (particularly in the first book) some important items in both Arabic and English.

In summation, despite the valuable information that may interest both a general readership and students of history, the credibility of these books is impaired by what they ignore. In his acknowledgments in the first book, the author thanks the late King Hussein and the freedom “which enabled me to write as objectively and truthfully as I could about a very critical and sensitive period of Jordan's history.” In the second volume, Abu Nowar again thanks the deceased king, “who urged me to publish the whole truth based on both historical facts and adherence to the dignity of history.” One may speculate that Abu Nowar's interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the king's desires might be the explanation for his occasional selectivity.