"Britain in the Middle East" provides a comprehensive survey of British involvement in the Middle East, exploring their mutual construction and influence across the entire historical sweep of their relationship. In the 17th century, Britain was establishing trade links in the Middle East, using its position in India to increasingly exclude other European powers. Over the coming centuries this commercial influence developed into political power and finally formal empire, as the British sought to control their regional hegemony through military force. Robert Harrison charts this relationship, exploring how the Middle East served as the launchpad for British offensive action in the World Wars, and how resentment against colonial rule in the region led ultimately to political and Islamic revolutions and Britain's demise as a global, imperial power.

This work reexamines the British invasion of Egypt in 1882. Gladstone systematically created a rationale for intervention against Arabi and the national movement in Egypt toward independence, provoked the Alexandria Riots but blamed Arabi for them, and used them to justify Wolseley's expedition, already planned, "to save Egypt." These actions annihilated Egypt's constitutional movement and produced a prolonged racist occupation; divided the Liberal Party; inspired neo-imperialism; and isolated Britain from the Ottoman Empire and the European Powers until the First World War.

"Britain in the Middle East" provides a comprehensive survey of British involvement in the Middle East, exploring their mutual construction and influence across the entire historical sweep of their relationship. In the 17th century, Britain was establishing trade links in the Middle East, using its position in India to increasingly exclude other European powers. Over the coming centuries this commercial influence developed into political power and finally formal empire, as the British sought to control their regional hegemony through military force. Robert Harrison charts this relationship, exploring how the Middle East served as the launchpad for British offensive action in the World Wars, and how resentment against colonial rule in the region led ultimately to political and Islamic revolutions and Britain's demise as a global, imperial power.