Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. List of Maps xi
4. Preliminary Note xiii
5. Introduction
6. The Lands, Their Rulers, and Their Aggressors 1
7. Strategies and Visions 7
8. The Claims of Chronology 12
9. A Tale of Two Obelisks 19
10. Chapter 1
11. Napoleon, India, and the Battle for Egypt 22
12. Grenville, the Eurocentric Approach, and Sidney Smith 23
13. Dundas, India, and the Blue Water Strategy 36
14. Chapter 2
15. Sealing off Egypt and the Red Sea 46
16. The Search for Stability in Egypt, 1801–3 47
17. Egyptian Chaos, the French Threat, and the British Response, 1803–7 57
18. The Red Sea: Popham and Valentia, Arabs and Abyssinians 67
19. Chapter 3
20. Striving for Leverage in Baghdad 80
21. Harford Jones: Failure of the Dundas Strategy 82
22. Claudius Rich: Pomp and Mediation in an Indian Outstation 88
23. The Wahhabi, the Qawasim, and British Sea Power in the Gulf 98
24. “Our Koordistan”: The Extraordinary Ambitions of Claudius Rich 103
25. Rich’s Legacy 108
26. Chapter 4
27. Filling the Arabian Vacuum: Steam, the Arabs, and the Defence of India in the 1830s 111
28. Ottoman Collapse and Russian Threat 112
29. Steam and Plague: Progress and Decay 117
30. Steamers and Arabs in Mesopotamia 123
31. Steam, the Red Sea, and Southern Arabia 130
32. Hobhouse, Palmerston, the Middle East, and India 136
33. Chapter 5
34. Britain, Egypt, and Syria in the Heyday of Mehmet Ali 144
35. Samuel Briggs and the Afterlife of the Levant Company 145
36. Economic and Cultural Exchanges 149
37. Steam and the Two Faces of Mehmet Ali’s Egypt 153
38. Benthamism, Islam, and the Pursuit of Good Government in Egypt 158
39. Syria, Liberalism, and the Russian Threat to Asia 161
40. New Voices on Syria: Embassy Ottomanists and Christian Tourists 168
41. Chapter 6
42. Constantinople, London, the Eastern Crisis, and the Middle East 174
43. David Urquhart, Islam, and Free Commerce 177
44. Factional Gridlock at Constantinople 182
45. Ending the Stalemate 185
46. Britain, France, and the Future of Syria 189
47. Reshid, Richard Wood, and the Edict of Gülhane 193
48. Napier or Wood, Smith or Elgin, Cairo or Constantinople? 198
49. Chapter 7
50. The Brief History of British Religious Sectarianism in Syria and Kurdistan 206
51. Protestant Missions and Eastern Christians 209
52. Jerusalem, City of Sin 215
53. The Appeal to Jews and Its Limits 219
54. The War of Institutional Christianity over Syria 224
55. The Druze and the Perils of Sectarianism in Syria 232
56. The Nestorians of Kurdistan 239
57. Chapter 8
58. Confining the Sectarian Problem: Syria, Kurdistan, France, and the Porte 249
59. Finding a Balance in Lebanon 251
60. Persecution, Protestantism, and the Tanzimat 257
61. Institutionalising Protestant Weakness 262
62. The Problem of Order in Kurdistan 264
63. Britain, France, and Religious Protection in the New Kurdistan 271
64. Chapter 9
65. Stratford Canning and the Politics of Christianity and Islam 278
66. Canning, Russia, and Islam 279
67. Palmerston, Canning, and the Liberal Project 283
68. Henry Layard and the Lessons of Nineveh 290
69. Chapter 10
70. The Ring of Steam, the Lands of Islam, and the Search for Order 298
71. Ottoman Sovereignty and the Persian Border 299
72. Conflicts with Ottomanism: Muhammara and the Gulf 304
73. Steam Power, Economic Improvement, and Regional Security in Baghdad 309
74. Aden: A New Centre of Stability 317
75. The French, the Ottomans, and the Western Red Sea Harbours 323
76. Chapter 11
77. The British Corridor in Egypt 334
78. England in Egypt, Egypt in England 335
79. Mehmet Ali and the Transit 341
80. Abbas and the Railway Project 346
81. A Rage for Order 349
82. The French and the Sultan 353
83. Chapter 12
84. Jerusalem and the Crimean War 356
85. Unholy Places 356
86. Whose War? 362
87. Conclusion 373
88. Acknowledgments 405
89. Bibliography 409
90. Index 435