Jonathan Parry’s book examines the history of the British policies toward the Middle East in the first half of the nineteenth century considering the mindset and attitudes of the policy makers as well as the influence and interests of the individuals and companies. It draws on the British sources and tries to understand their viewpoints, aspirations, and prejudices. The book provides sophisticated explanations to many British undertakings in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that go beyond the stereotypical premises and complements the “Ottoman-centric” perspectives on the remaking of the Arab east in the modern era that reached to a considerable volume. Parry offers new frame of analysis for many well-known British actions such as their relations with Mehmed Ali of Egypt, their support to the Jews, and the British attitudes toward Islam.
The book contains twelve chapters focusing on the various aspects of the British foreign and commercial policy toward the Arab East containing Egypt. Following an old-fashioned Eurocentric tradition, he starts the book with the Napoleon’s invasion, which, according to these viewpoints, constituted a turning point for the modernization history of the region, but differs from them contextualizing the British battle for Egypt in a larger Indian and European politics sheding light on the competing “Europeanist” and “Indianist” factions among the British foreign policy makers and their impact on decision-making processes. Chapter 1 also highlights how the Ottoman–British alliance against Napoleon initiated a process for the inclusion of the Ottoman Empire in the European diplomacy. In addition, the chapter contains many details regarding the relations of the local leaders like Cezzar Ahmed of Sidon and Amir Bashir of Lebanon with the British. In follow-up, Chapter 2 indicates how influential a second French invasion of Egypt was to their support to Mehmed Ali who exhibited a promising leadership for stability in Egypt and the Red Sea.
Chapters 3 and 4 examine the evolution of the British policy toward Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and Arabia and the British penetration into the region in the first half of the nineteenth century focusing on the differing attitudes, interests, and perspectives of personalities who made an impact on the policy-making processes of the empire. These chapters include many details about the activities of the officials of the East India Company and individual merchants needed to increase the commercial relations between these regions and India, on which the great amount of their revenues relied. The author adds to our knowledge about the relations between the prominent British figures and the Ottoman officials in Baghdad, and the relationships of the British representatives and merchants in the Gulf region with the Wahhabis. In addition, the chapter deals with the British–Russian/British–French competition over the Ottoman Iraqi provinces and the Gulf. Chapter 4 also provides valuable details on earlier history of steam navigation from the British perspectives, particularly the Euphrates Expedition of 1838. Sections on the undertakings to connect Europe with India through the Mesopotamian rivers, Syria, and Mediterranean provide a compact narrative that brings many details and perspectives together and demonstrate the contingencies in the British policy of the nineteenth century. These chapters would be more beneficial if Ottoman and/or Russian and French perspectives benefitting from the documents of these states had been added.
Chapter 5 focuses on the British–Mehmed Ali relations in the heydays of the Egyptian ruler that examines varying attitudes among the British officials toward the state-monopolistic economic model of Mehmed Ali in Egypt and Syria. While one group advocated Mehmed Ali considering that the best option for the Middle East was the Pasha’s model, others adopted a pro-free-trade attitude and defended its globalization as much as possible. It also discusses how Mehmed Ali’s policies and the British preferences were reconciled. Although the chapter contains detailed information about the Egyptian–British relations in Egypt and Syria, again, the lack of an Egyptian perspective prevents the author from making broader analyses both on the British policy and its impact and its reception by the Egyptian policy makers.
The Ottoman–British relations shaped by the reestablishment of the Ottoman rule in Syria with the help of the British and other European powers are analyzed in Chapter 6 and unearth many details and shed new light on the political attitudes of many politicians like David Urquhart, Bashir Qasim (of Lebanon), and Mustafa Reşid Paşa whose agency brought about a strong support to the Ottoman expedition of Syria in 1840. It also revisits the role of the free trade in the establishment of an alliance between the two empires.
British religious sectarianism in Syria and Kurdistan is discussed in Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 provides a historical background and indicates that the Protestant religious institutions –Anglican and Dissenting – had an impact on policies toward Syria and Kurdistan in the late 1830s and 1840s focusing on the relations with the non-Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic communities such as Nestorians and Assyrians. In follow-up, Chapter 8 elaborates the British sectarian policies in the context of the French, Ottoman, and British competition for influence among the non-Muslim communities of the Middle East.
Chapter 9 focuses on Stanford Canning’s policies toward the Christians of the Ottoman Empire who defended, in line with the Tanzimat’s conception and contrary to the British consuls in Syria and Iraq, an equal idea of citizenship of the Ottoman subjects. Other British representatives in the region were concerned about the increasing French and Russian influences while Canning’s approach concentrated on the Ottoman Empire and had a considerable impact on the transformation of the Ottoman policies toward the non-Muslim societies. In a similar vein, Chapter 10 examines “Britain’s strategies for promoting order along the southern and eastern borders of the Ottoman Empire where it had naval authority” (p. 298) in the 1840s when steam power consolidated the British hold over the routes to India. The author highlights that the British Empire was the power most consistently challenged the Ottoman territorial assumptions. The collaboration and conflict between the local Ottoman and British officials and merchants over the issues such as trade, the limits of the freedom of action for the local tribes, and the border between the Ottomans and Persia are also touched throughout the chapter.
The author returns to Egypt in Chapter 11 to demonstrate Egypt’s centrality for the realization of Britain’s global imperialist vision because the country is invested as a corridor to India. To that end, Parry details the British projects such Alexandria-Cairo-Suez Railway projects that would consummate Egypt’s position as a corridor. The last chapter discusses the impact of the Crimean War on the liberalization of the Ottoman Empire and its legitimation in the Western public opinion as the elimination of the Russian threat for Europe and for Jerusalem although the situation of the latter in European propaganda has not been satisfactorily elaborated.
The book provides a compact history of the British policies toward the Arab east balancing between the agencies of the influential personalities and the government policies. It is a successfully “humanized” diplomatic history although the author has “made no attempt to explore the effects of British activities on local societies” (p. 13) that would make the content more diverse and demonstrate better the multitude of interactions between the British and the local people.
