LORDS OF THE DESERT

BRITAIN’S STRUGGLE WITH AMERICA TO DOMINATE THE MIDDLE EAST

JAMES BARR Simon and Schuster, 401pp, £20, Oldie price £12.48 inc p&p

This is a follow-up to Barr’s 2011 book A Line in the Sand, which told the story of how imperial rivals France and Britain carved up the Middle East. Here, Barr argues that ‘from 1942, until Britain’s exit from the Gulf in 1971, Britain and the United States were invariably competitors in the Middle East, and often outright rivals’. The Guardian’s reviewer Ian Black called it ‘beautifully written and deeply researched’ and ‘if most of the events covered are broadly familiar, they are seen from an unusual angle’. Black did not find it off-putting that ‘the action of Lords of the Desert takes place largely in corridors of power. There is barely a subaltern in sight. But it goes far beyond classic diplomatic history, the genre of “what one clerk said to another”, superbly illustrating the constraints of Britain’s decline and America’s inexorable rise, the two united only by hostility to the Soviet Union and concern for their respective national interests. Barr also deftly integrates the role of secret intelligence in foreign policy, drawing on the diary of a little-known journalist-cum-mi6 agent to add indiscreet and illuminating detail.’ Lawrence James, writing in the Times, was equally enthralled. ‘Barr describes this transfer of power [from Britain to the US] in a brilliant, detached and eye-opening narrative that matches his A Line in the Sand in pace. It is a gripping tale of diplomatic legerdemain, political hypocrisy and, once the intelligence boys got going, derring-do. There are even comic moments when the world of Carry

on Spying intruded into high politics.’