Britain, Egypt, and Iraq during World War II

Britain, Egypt, and Iraq during World War II
Author: Stefanie Wichhart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2021-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755634543

This book explores the tumultuous war years through the lens of the British Embassies in Cairo and Baghdad, demonstrating the role that the Second World War played in shaping the political and social map of the contemporary Middle East. The war served as a catalyst for seismic changes in Arab society and the emergence of new movements that provided powerful critiques of British intervention and of the governments that facilitated it, making the war a critical turning point in Britain's empire in the Middle East.

Britain, Egypt, and Iraq During World War II

Britain, Egypt, and Iraq During World War II
Author: Stefanie Wichhart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2023-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755644190

This book explores the tumultuous war years through the lens of the British Embassies in Cairo and Baghdad, demonstrating the role that the Second World War played in shaping the political and social map of the contemporary Middle East. The war served as a catalyst for seismic changes in Arab society and the emergence of new movements that provided powerful critiques of British intervention and of the governments that facilitated it, making the war a critical turning point in Britain's empire in the Middle East.

Persian Gulf Command

Persian Gulf Command
Author: Ashley Jackson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2018-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300235364

“Offers us a fascinating new perspective on the Second World War—its impact on local societies in the Middle East.” (Richard J. Aldrich, author of The Black Door) This dynamic history is the first to construct a total picture of the experience and impact of World War II in Iran and Iraq. Contending that these two countries were more important to the Allied forces’ war operations than has ever been acknowledged, historian Ashley Jackson investigates the grand strategy of the Allies and their operations in the region and the continuing legacy of Western intervention in the Middle East. Iran and Iraq served as the first WWII theater in which the U.S., the U.K., and the U.S.S.R. fought alongside each other. Jackson charts the intense Allied military activity in Iran and Iraq and reveals how deeply the war impacted common people’s lives. He also provides revelations about the true nature of Anglo-American relations in the region, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the continuing corrosive legacy of Western influence in these lands. “Skillfully brings together the complex range of developments that took place in Iraq and Iran during the Second World War.” —Evan Mawdsley, author of December 1941 “A brilliant book that confirms Ashley Jackson’s place among the preeminent scholars of the British empire.” —Joe Maiolo, author of Cry Havoc “Consistently fascinating and thought-provoking.” —Simon Ball, author of The Bitter Sea “In this lucid work, filled with telling details and well-crafted arguments, Jackson has finally revealed the undoubted significance of Iran and Iraq to the wider war.” —Niall Barr, author of Eisenhower's Armies

Britain, Egypt, and Iraq during World War II

Britain, Egypt, and Iraq during World War II
Author: Stefanie Wichhart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2021-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0755634535

This book explores the tumultuous war years through the lens of the British Embassies in Cairo and Baghdad, demonstrating the role that the Second World War played in shaping the political and social map of the contemporary Middle East. The war served as a catalyst for seismic changes in Arab society and the emergence of new movements that provided powerful critiques of British intervention and of the governments that facilitated it, making the war a critical turning point in Britain's empire in the Middle East.

Blood, Oil and the Axis

Blood, Oil and the Axis
Author: John Broich
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1468314017

An “almost absurdly colorful” history of the WWII battle for the Levant: “In places . . . the material is like Casablanca meets The English Patient” (The Wall Street Journal). In the spring of 1941, the Allied forces had one last hope: that the Axis would run through its fuel supply. In Blood, Oil and the Axis, historian John Broich tells the vital story of Iraq and the Levant during this most pivotal time of the war. Four Iraqi generals staged a pro-German coup in Iraq, they established military cooperation between the Axis and the Middle East. The Allies responded with an improvised and unlikely coalition: Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs, Australians, American and British soldiers, Free French Foreign Legionnaires, and Jewish Palestinians. All shared a common desire to quash the formation of an Axis state in the region. Taking readers from a bombed-out Fallujah, to Baghdad, to Damascus, this definitive chronicle features numerous memorable figures, including Jack Hasey, a young American who fought with the Free French Foreign Legion; Freya Stark, a famous travel-writer-turned-government-agent; and even Roald Dahl, a young Royal Air Force recruit and future author of beloved children’s books.

Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism

Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism
Author: Israel Gershoni
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2014-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 029275745X

The first book to present an analysis of Arab response to fascism and Nazism from the perspectives of both individual countries and the Arab world at large, this collection problematizes and ultimately deconstructs the established narratives that assume most Arabs supported fascism and Nazism leading up to and during World War II. Using new source materials taken largely from Arab memoirs, archives, and print media, the articles reexamine Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Iraqi responses in the 1930s and throughout the war. While acknowledging the individuals, forces, and organizations that did support and collaborate with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism focuses on the many other Arab voices that identified with Britain and France and with the Allied cause during the war. The authors argue that many groups within Arab societies—elites and non-elites, governing forces, and civilians—rejected Nazism and fascism as totalitarian, racist, and, most important, as new, more oppressive forms of European imperialism. The essays in this volume argue that, in contrast to prevailing beliefs that Arabs were de facto supporters of Italy and Germany—since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"—mainstream Arab forces and currents opposed the Axis powers and supported the Allies during the war. They played a significant role in the battles for control over the Middle East.

Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941

Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941
Author: Daniel Todman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 864
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190621826

Great Britain's refusal to yield to Nazi Germany in the Second World War remains one of the greatest survival stories of modern times. Commemorated, evoked, and mythologized as it has been-chiseled and engraved onto countless monuments, the subject of an endless stream of books and films-its triumphant outcome was by no means predetermined. In December 1940, months after war was declared, the director of plans at the War Office in London was asked to draft a paper on how to win the war. He replied that he could only plan "for not losing." Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937-1941 is the first of two volumes in which Daniel Todman offers a brilliantly fresh retelling, an epic history to fit an epic story. "Opening with his discovery of some war medals sitting in a hearing-aid box that likely belonged to his grandfather, Todman realizes that despite it all a new generation seems unaware of what was truly at stake when Churchill invoked Britain's "finest hour." The war was far greater than any single heroic hour. For six years, Britain was at the dark heart of history, finding its way forward hour by hour, day by day, year by year. This volume spans the beginning and the end of the beginning, from the massive changes required to get the country onto a war footing, through the failure of appeasement, the invasion of Poland, the "phony war," the fall of France, the "miracle" of Dunkirk, the Battles of Britain, and the Blitz, ending with America's course-changing entrance into the conflict in late 1941. Todman's colossal project seamlessly merges economic, strategic, social, cultural, and military history in one compelling narrative. Rapid industrialization, social disruption, food rationing, Westminster politics, class snobbery, and the mobilization of a global empire are woven together with the major opening battles. Here, also, are key individuals-the politicians, industrialists, pub owners, housewives, the pilots of the RAF, and the sailors at Dunkirk-caught in the maelstrom that threatened to engulf not just a small island nation but the world itself.

Iraq Between the Two World Wars

Iraq Between the Two World Wars
Author: Reeva S. Simon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231132158

Reeva Spector Simon describes how the new Iraqi political elite after World War I created an Iraqi Arab nationalist identity.

Britain in the Islamic World

Britain in the Islamic World
Author: Justin Quinn Olmstead
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2019-08-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030245098

This collection examines the role of Britain in the Islamic world. It offers insight into the social, political, diplomatic, and military issues that arose over the centuries of British involvement in the region, particularly focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. British involvement can be separated into three phases: Discovery, Colonization and Decolonization, and Post-Empire. Decisions made by individual traders and high governmental officials are examined to understand how Great Britain impacted the Islamic world through these periods and, conversely, how events in the Islamic world influenced British decisions within the empire, in protection of the empire, and in the wake of the empire. The essays consider early perceptions of Islam, the role of trade, British-Ottoman relations, and colonial rule and control through religion. They explore British influence in a number of countries, including Somalia, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, the Gulf States, India, and beyond. The final part of the book addresses the lasting impact of British imperial rule in the Islamic world.

Revolutionary Emotions in Cold War Egypt

Revolutionary Emotions in Cold War Egypt
Author: Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2024-04-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350383775

In autumn 1951, a diverse array of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish students from clubs like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Worker's Vanguard launched a guerrilla struggle against British occupation of the Suez Canal Zone. Revolutionary Emotions in Cold War Egypt recovers this overshadowed revolution of 1951, and the part played by the “Canal struggle” in the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy. In a study spanning a half-dozen international archives, the book delves into the divisive court cases and rousing club newspapers, intimate memoirs and personal poetry of Egyptian activists. These documents reveal that in the early years of the Cold War, morality tales and moral emotions were at the heart of the methods and the successes of Egyptian activists. What stories did activists tell, and how did the emotional appeals and “moral talk” of Islamist and communist clubs compare? How did Arabic-speaking populations negotiate moral norms, and what role did emotions like love, anger, and disgust play in political campaigns? Taking a journey through Islamic parables about perilous beaches, communist adaptations of Greek myths, and popular stories about Juha's Nail and Paul Revere's Ride through the Suez Canal, this book uncovers a rich history of activist storytelling. These practices uncover the mechanics of morality tales, and reveal how activists used narratives to convert emotion to motion and drive social change. Still vitally important for readers today, such findings shed light on how paramilitary groups and protest movements use moral appeals to attract support-and why activist campaigns become the controversial epicentre of polarizing emotional battles.