Outskirts of Empire: Studies in British Power Projection investigates the substructure of Britain’s interests in the Near East and beyond during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Essays address themes in British power projection in a geographically wide area encompassing parts of the Ottoman Empire, Morocco and Abyssinia, illuminating interlinking elements of Britain’s power and presence through commerce, religion, consular activity, expatriates, travel and exploration and technology. Through careful investigation of the interface of these themes the book develops a deeper sense of Britain’s presence in the Near East and contiguous areas and highlights the network of Britons who were required to sustain that presence.
Acknowledgements Abbreviations Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1: Britain and Abyssinia: the forward view Chapter 2: Mesopotamia in the official mind, before, during and after the First World War Chapter 3: The Politics of Relief: British humanitarian aid to the Turk, 1876–7 Chapter 4: ‘Casting out Devils’: British military consuls in Turkey Chapter 5: A spearhead of influence in the Near East: the New Levant Company and British commerce in the aftermath of war Chapter 6: The Foreign Office and the issue of sacred space in Morocco, c1860 to 1970 Bibliography
Biography
John Fisher is Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of the West of England, UK. His previous publications have focused largely on British interests in the Middle East and North Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as on other aspects of British foreign policy in that timeframe.
