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Review
'With superb research and telling quotations, Barr has skewered the whole shabby story... The convulsion of that fateful line in the sand are still being felt today - not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world.' --The Times, 29 July 2011
Racy... Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and... he is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant.' --Sunday Times, 24 July 2011
'superb research and telling quotations' --The Times
`Racy ... Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and -- in 1941 -- outright war in Syria. ... he is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant' --Sunday Times
`James Barr's history of imperial machinations in the Middle East offers a revelatory slant on the continuing crisis in that area... an outstanding piece of research and a damning take on what stoked current Middle Eastern woes' --Metro
`One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other. The people of the region were only too happy to help fuel the rivalry: if a British administrator devised a new plan or wrote a damning description of his French counterpart, the chances are that a copy would arrive in Paris soon after London. Barr gives less attention to this aspect of the rivalry. He has also limited the story in time -- no mention, for instance, of Napoleon and Nelson fighting their way through the region in the 1790s at the beginning of the struggle. Nor, more significant, the fiasco that ensued in 1956 when the two rivals worked in unison in response to Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal. But there is enough here to have even the most jingoistic readers shaking their heads and, in the light of 60 years of conflict that has followed, wondering whether the region would now be more resolved and peaceful had the British and French never been allowed to take control' --The Spectator
`Times Reporter Who Upset The French And Was Repaid With A Bellyful Of Trouble' --The Times
`Barr lays out in detail how between the wars the two countries sought to undermine one another in the Middle East. ...[He] is particularly good at identifying and portraying officials and agents engaged in these tit-for-tat reprisals that blurred the distinction between patriotism and crime. ...Barr devotes some final engrossing chapters to the way the French tried to get their own back on Arabs and British alike by conspiring with the Zionists in the post-1945 turmoil. ...The real moral of this story seems to be that the game of nations has no rules, no winners and no point' --Literary Review
`[A Line In The Sand] researches in meticulous detail an important and definitive period in the history of the Middle East and Palestine, which aroused imperial feuding for the sake of dominion over the East, and which continues to be tangible. The author has expended considerable efforts in research and verification in tracing the threads of the feud between Britain and France... . [He] is peerless in his extensive treatment of the Zionist terrorist campaigns ... [which], at the end of the day, brought about the British debacle in Palestine and resulted in great human or material loss' --Al Quds Magazine
`Lively and entertaining. He has scoured the diplomatic archives of the two powers as well as the private papers of most of the leading officials of the time in search of the telling phrase, and has come up with a rich haul that brings his narrative to life' --Financial Times
Racy... Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and... he is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant.' --Sunday Times, 24 July 2011
'superb research and telling quotations' --The Times
`Racy ... Barr describes the complexities of Anglo-French intrigues against each other and -- in 1941 -- outright war in Syria. ... he is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant' --Sunday Times
`James Barr's history of imperial machinations in the Middle East offers a revelatory slant on the continuing crisis in that area... an outstanding piece of research and a damning take on what stoked current Middle Eastern woes' --Metro
`One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other. The people of the region were only too happy to help fuel the rivalry: if a British administrator devised a new plan or wrote a damning description of his French counterpart, the chances are that a copy would arrive in Paris soon after London. Barr gives less attention to this aspect of the rivalry. He has also limited the story in time -- no mention, for instance, of Napoleon and Nelson fighting their way through the region in the 1790s at the beginning of the struggle. Nor, more significant, the fiasco that ensued in 1956 when the two rivals worked in unison in response to Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal. But there is enough here to have even the most jingoistic readers shaking their heads and, in the light of 60 years of conflict that has followed, wondering whether the region would now be more resolved and peaceful had the British and French never been allowed to take control' --The Spectator
`Times Reporter Who Upset The French And Was Repaid With A Bellyful Of Trouble' --The Times
`Barr lays out in detail how between the wars the two countries sought to undermine one another in the Middle East. ...[He] is particularly good at identifying and portraying officials and agents engaged in these tit-for-tat reprisals that blurred the distinction between patriotism and crime. ...Barr devotes some final engrossing chapters to the way the French tried to get their own back on Arabs and British alike by conspiring with the Zionists in the post-1945 turmoil. ...The real moral of this story seems to be that the game of nations has no rules, no winners and no point' --Literary Review
`[A Line In The Sand] researches in meticulous detail an important and definitive period in the history of the Middle East and Palestine, which aroused imperial feuding for the sake of dominion over the East, and which continues to be tangible. The author has expended considerable efforts in research and verification in tracing the threads of the feud between Britain and France... . [He] is peerless in his extensive treatment of the Zionist terrorist campaigns ... [which], at the end of the day, brought about the British debacle in Palestine and resulted in great human or material loss' --Al Quds Magazine
`Lively and entertaining. He has scoured the diplomatic archives of the two powers as well as the private papers of most of the leading officials of the time in search of the telling phrase, and has come up with a rich haul that brings his narrative to life' --Financial Times
Review
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--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the story of Britain and France eagerly burdening themselves with mandates over the carcass of the Ottoman Empire. It covers the time from the last year of the First World War to the end of the 1940s and it describes the "30 year-long gasp of empire" and "the struggle between Britain and France for the mastery of the Middle East".
These were mandates, not colonies. US President Wilson would not have approved of the word colony and anyway, surely colonies and overt imperialism were going out of fashion in those ever more lightened days after the First World War?
It is a story of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan and Mesopotamia and of attempts to found a Greater Syria and a Jewish homeland. For France it often seems to be a story of glory and honour. For Britain it seems to be a story of Iraqi oil, the misleadingly named (Anglo-American-French) Turkish Petroleum Company and a search for a pipeline route to the Mediterranean.
The locals dreamed of independence and a new Arab nation. On the western fringe of the area a few Zionists dreamed of their freedom in their own homeland. The British dreamed of their oil terminal for the pipeline, fuel security for the Royal Navy and a buffer zone for the Suez Canal, the gateway to India - still a colony and definitely not a mandate.
The story has an intriguing cast, both on and off stage. Mr Sykes and M. Picot and their eponymous line in the sand make an appearance, as do Churchill, Allenby, Weizmann, Balfour, Lawrence, de Gaulle, Feisal, Abdullah and a list of others less well known.
I liked this book very much. Towards the end I started flagging, but no matter, this is a book to revisit and use as a reference. It is of moderate size at just under 400 pages plus extensive notes, bibliography, index and a few black and white plates which help to put faces to names of some of the people mentioned.
If you want to have some understanding of the Middle East now, and perhaps of Britain and France too, then you need to know about the Middle East then. This is the book. Under the surface, the entente was not so cordiale.
These were mandates, not colonies. US President Wilson would not have approved of the word colony and anyway, surely colonies and overt imperialism were going out of fashion in those ever more lightened days after the First World War?
It is a story of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan and Mesopotamia and of attempts to found a Greater Syria and a Jewish homeland. For France it often seems to be a story of glory and honour. For Britain it seems to be a story of Iraqi oil, the misleadingly named (Anglo-American-French) Turkish Petroleum Company and a search for a pipeline route to the Mediterranean.
The locals dreamed of independence and a new Arab nation. On the western fringe of the area a few Zionists dreamed of their freedom in their own homeland. The British dreamed of their oil terminal for the pipeline, fuel security for the Royal Navy and a buffer zone for the Suez Canal, the gateway to India - still a colony and definitely not a mandate.
The story has an intriguing cast, both on and off stage. Mr Sykes and M. Picot and their eponymous line in the sand make an appearance, as do Churchill, Allenby, Weizmann, Balfour, Lawrence, de Gaulle, Feisal, Abdullah and a list of others less well known.
I liked this book very much. Towards the end I started flagging, but no matter, this is a book to revisit and use as a reference. It is of moderate size at just under 400 pages plus extensive notes, bibliography, index and a few black and white plates which help to put faces to names of some of the people mentioned.
If you want to have some understanding of the Middle East now, and perhaps of Britain and France too, then you need to know about the Middle East then. This is the book. Under the surface, the entente was not so cordiale.
69 of 74 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Simply put, a good read and I recommend it.
I've wandered about the Middle East a bit and done a fair amount of reading about the area particularly, WW1 through WW2. And I have a fascination with the predominately British characters who haunted the area, for self and Empire. In my simplistic script, the French were the Bad Guys, holding the Arabs back. So did the Brits, but I was inclined to forgive them. After all, they had TE Lawrence in his flowing robes.
And that certainly didn't endear them to the French!
The French are still the Bad Guys - not that the Brits were always the Good Guys. Both were out for what they could get, damn the torpedoes - or rather, the Arabs. And James Barr's latest work is about the over the thirty-four year competition between the two countries to obtain/retain supremacy in the Middle East.
It isn't just that the French resisted freeing Syria after WW2, but the way they went about revenging themselves on the British who seemed one step ahead in the Intelligence game. . But then there was the equivocations of the British government; their failure to draw "a line in the sand" as it were - and mean it! It was in Palestine where the French got theirs back, supporting in one way or another, both Irgun and Stern terrorist gangs Even the US got into that act with well meaning and, hopefully, unknowing citizens paying into those particular Jewish coffers (much as occurred later, during the Irish Troubles).
Barr documents this all in a well written history and thoroughly documented history of the time. While I knew the ending, the journey was memorizing.
I can't resist but conclude with a comment by the former Chief Secretary of Palestine, a survivor of the King David Hotel bombing, that might be a guide in today's foreign policy: ".....it's not your business or my business .....to interfere in other people's countries and tell them how to run it, or even to run it well. They must be left to their own salvation."
I've wandered about the Middle East a bit and done a fair amount of reading about the area particularly, WW1 through WW2. And I have a fascination with the predominately British characters who haunted the area, for self and Empire. In my simplistic script, the French were the Bad Guys, holding the Arabs back. So did the Brits, but I was inclined to forgive them. After all, they had TE Lawrence in his flowing robes.
And that certainly didn't endear them to the French!
The French are still the Bad Guys - not that the Brits were always the Good Guys. Both were out for what they could get, damn the torpedoes - or rather, the Arabs. And James Barr's latest work is about the over the thirty-four year competition between the two countries to obtain/retain supremacy in the Middle East.
It isn't just that the French resisted freeing Syria after WW2, but the way they went about revenging themselves on the British who seemed one step ahead in the Intelligence game. . But then there was the equivocations of the British government; their failure to draw "a line in the sand" as it were - and mean it! It was in Palestine where the French got theirs back, supporting in one way or another, both Irgun and Stern terrorist gangs Even the US got into that act with well meaning and, hopefully, unknowing citizens paying into those particular Jewish coffers (much as occurred later, during the Irish Troubles).
Barr documents this all in a well written history and thoroughly documented history of the time. While I knew the ending, the journey was memorizing.
I can't resist but conclude with a comment by the former Chief Secretary of Palestine, a survivor of the King David Hotel bombing, that might be a guide in today's foreign policy: ".....it's not your business or my business .....to interfere in other people's countries and tell them how to run it, or even to run it well. They must be left to their own salvation."
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This excellent work is extremely well researched and throws an amazing and distressing light on the creation of the modern Middle East. Barr points out that during the First World War, in between the wars, and during the second World War Britain and France were more concerned with their own rivalry than with any of the esablished peoples of the region. The cynical power stuggle between the two after the Sykes Picot agreement illustates why the area is still in such disarray.The creation of the State of Israel had little to do with Britain's support of Zionism but rather was a sop to the US and a means of Britain keeping the French out of Palestine. T.E.Lawrence comes out of it in a much better light, supporting as he does the local Arab cause throughout. Lloyd George emerges as a coniving manipulator.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good read
Book ordered was received speedily. It was securely packaged & in excellent condition. I am enjoying reading it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by khnoufy
Cynicism and raison d'etat
This is another excellent offering form the author of 'Setting the Desert on Fire'. Like his previous work, this book reads like a novel, with a cast of characters that would be... Read more
Published 1 month ago by R. Pavey
Lacks objectivity
The subject matter is a fascinating one, and is rarely written about. This is a rather entertaining book. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Vernon T
interesting book
I got this book for my husband who has a keen interest in the middle East. He enjoyed this book and found it very interesting and informative.
Published 3 months ago by SG
Understanding the Middle East
For an understanding of the current situation in the Middle East it is essential to have an understanding of the past. Read more
Published 3 months ago by StewHem
A Line in the Sand: The struggle that shaped the Middle East
Reading the book brought to life the influence which Britain and France had on the Middle East. With events taking place now, particularly in Iraq I wonder if we had the right to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Fran
A Line in the Sand
Towards the end of Worlld War I, France and Britain divided the Middle East countries that were in the Otoman Empire between themselves by drawing a lilne in the sand. Read more
Published 5 months ago by B. Mclaughlin
Eye-opening
With so much comparatively recent history of deceit and skulduggery, can we wonder at the state of the Middle East, or be surprised that the resentment our presence causes in the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by D. Roberts
A guide as to why current problems are founded in the past
A very enjoyable and well written book. Deeply researched and then convincingly argued, albeit with an unfashionable top down approach to history. Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Davies
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