The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf

by James Onley

Overview

The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj is a study of one of the most forbidding frontier zones of Britain's Indian Empire. The Gulf Residency, responsible for Britain's relationship with Eastern Arabia and Southern Persia, was part of an extensive network of political residencies that surrounded and protected British India. Based on extensive archival research in both the Gulf and Britain, this book examines how Britain's Political Resident in the Gulf and his very small cadre of British officers maintained the Pax Britannica on the waters of the Gulf, protected British interests throughout the region, and managed political relations with the dozens of Arab rulers and governors on both shores of the Gulf.

James Onley looks at the secret to the Gulf Residency's effectiveness—the extent to which the British worked within the indigenous political systems of the Gulf. He examines the way in which Arab rulers in need of protection collaborated with the Resident to maintain the Pax Britannica, while influential men from affluent Arab, Persian, and Indian merchant families served as the Resident's "native agents" (compradors) in over half of the political posts within the Gulf Residency.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199228102
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2008
Series:	Oxford Historical Monographs
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.20(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. British India's Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence in Asia and Africa
3. British India's Native Agency System in Asia
4. The Operation of British India's Native Agency in Bahrain
5. British India's Native Agents in Bahrain
6. The Decline of British India's Native Agency System in Bahrain and the Gulf
7. Conclusion: The Arabian Frontier of the Indian Empire

Editorial Reviews

"Meticulously researched...[A]n excellent introduction to the informal structures of British imperial rule...[E]ssential reading."—James Canton, Times Literary Supplement

"Conveys a great sense of intellectual excitement in its confident, but careful, rethinking of the British Indian Empire....Onley has the enviable ability to convey a world that has passed to a modern reader. As I read, I felt that I was with these resilient merchant families (enduring the heat!) as they offered their services to the British, generation after generation after generation."—2001 Malcolm H. Kerr Award Committee

"Through the meticulous use of family archives and local as well as British sources, this study succeeds in rescuing from obscurity key local actors in the British imperial system."—2002 Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize Committee

"This book is an excellent resource for scholars studying the Gulf region and for those interested in British imperialism. Onley has provided us with a unique view of the nineteenth-century Gulf."—Miriam Joyce, American Historical Review

"Onley deserves immense credit for the many useful and convincing findings he has unearthed with his island tale. His most signal achievement remains his painstaking restoration of the full cast and crew behind the illusionary solitary British officer in the Persian Gulf."—Pryiya Satia, Journal of British Studies

"James Onley's painstakingly researched monograph constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of the British Empire in the Persian Gulf and beyond....The book contains much fascinating detail....Onley is to be congratulated for a very well-researched and immensely readable book which will benefit both imperial historians as well as those concerned with the Gulf Area."—Ulrike Freitag, H-Net

"James Onley's well-researched study maps in great detail and with exemplary clarity how this collaboration [of indigenous elites with the British Indian Empire] came into being in the early modern Persian Gulf....[It represents] a major step on the path toward integrating Middle Eastern studies into wider theoretical debates."—Rudi Matthee, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

"[A] new and exciting departure in the historiography of the [Persian Gulf] region. In an equally stimulating fashion this book prompts the reader to re-think the historical roots of the contemporary political geography of the region which is usually considered the preserve of Middle Eastern specialists. Onley's book is a remarkable display of bibliographical erudition and knowledge of the subject matter. This study is clearly brilliantly researched. This is a book of substance....[I]ts approach is original and timely and likely to inspire other scholars in the field of regional and imperial history. For Gulf and Middle Eastern historians its main achievement is to 'bring indigenous agency back in' as a way of explaining the workings of the British Indian Empire in a regional context. For imperial historians this book will hopefully expand the geographical horizons of British India by focusing their attention on the relevance of its peripheries."—Nelida Fuccaro, Reviews in History Online

"James Onley's book is especially welcome. His work, founded on extensive research in both Britain and the Gulf itself, produces incisive conclusions which add greatly to our understanding of British methods of control in the informal empire."—Simon C. Smith, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

"[James Onley] has made a major contribution to our understanding of the functioning of the British Empire, as exemplified by the situation in the Persian Gulf in general and in the Bahrain Agency in particular. At the same time, he has given us a much better understanding of Gulf society and culture, which, as in previous centuries, differed from that of the adjacent mainland nations."—Willem Floor, Middle East Journal

"Onley's study of the indigenous side of informal empire is an important contribution to work on imperialism and deserves widespread attention."—Jeremy Black, History: The Journal of the Historical Association

"[A] brilliant book by James Onley, which I consider the best piece of Gulf scholarship to appear in many, many years."—Paul Rich, author of Creating the Arabian Gulf: The British Raj and the Invasions of the Gulf

From the Publisher