The Ottoman Gulf
The nineteenth-centuy Persian Gulf has been much studied but, Anscombe stresses, always relying primarily on the British archives and therefore seen predominantly from the British point of view. He instead bases his work on the Ottoman documents and sees the Gulf from the perspective of Instanbul. . . . Excellent. --Middle East QuarterlyToo much modern Arab history has been written as if the Ottoman Empire had virtually no standing in the unfolding events. Anscombe corrects and enriches the record by uncovering and interpreting the significant Ottoman input without, however, slighting the Wahhibi-Saudi and British-Western sources and interpretations. All are deftly balanced in this fine study.  --L. Carl Brown author ofImperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East