Robert McNamara, "The Hashemites: The Dream of Arabia"
English | 2010 | ISBN: 1905791666 | PDF | pages: 254 | 1.6 mb
The story of the Arab Revolt and the Hashemite princes who led it during the First World War is inextricably linked in modern eyes to the legend of Lawrence of Arabia as portrayed in David Lean's 1962 film. But behind this romantic image lies a harsher reality of wartime expediency, double-dealing and dynastic ambition, which shaped the modern Middle East and laid the foundations of many of the conflicts that rack the region to this day. Arab nationalists claim that British instigation for the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire was a commitment to independence for the Arab people, but in this book Robert McNamara shows how the British cultivated the Hashemite Sherifs of Mecca more as an alternative focus during the First World War for Muslim loyalty from the Ottoman Sultan, who as Caliph had declared a jihad against the Allies when the Turks joined the Central Powers, than a leader of an independent and united Arabia. At the same time, the Sykes-Picot Agreement divided up the Middle East between British and French spheres of influence. The sense of betrayal that this caused has coloured Arab nationalists' views of the West ever since. The main countries of the Middle East ―Jordan, Syria and Iraq―are all the creations of the post-First World War settlement worked out at the Paris Peace Conference. The story of the Hashemite dynasty at the Paris Peace Conference is the story of the birth of the modern history of a region that is now more than ever at the centre of world affairs.

Mariana Castro, "The Function of the Roman Army in Southern Arabia Petraea"
English | 2019 | pages: 243 | ISBN: 1784919527 | PDF | 23,3 mb
Over the last decades, discussions about the functions of the Roman army in frontier areas have contributed to a complex understanding of the military and its interactions with local geographies and peoples throughout the Empire. Nevertheless, in the region of Arabia, there is still little consensus about the purpose of the Roman military presence, its fluctuating functions, or the role of hundreds of fortified buildings scattered across the landscape. So far, these questions have remained unanswered due to a lack of excavation data and the scarcity of ancient accounts directly involving the military in Arabia Petraea. This study aims to provide a fresh perspective on these issues by employing a landscape approach, paralleling it with the ancient sources which describe the roles of the Roman military in the East. Using a variety of digital resources to contextually map and model the ancient system of fortifications, settlements, and trade routes, we can now better understand the evolving and diverse functions of the Roman army in Arabia from the creation of the province to the end of the Byzantine period.

Bathhouses in Iudaea/Syria-Palaestina and Provincia Arabia from Herod the Great to the Umayyads By Arleta Kowalewska
2021 | 176 Pages | ISBN: 1789256577 | PDF | 111 MB
Bathing culture was one of the pillars of Roman society and bathhouses are one of the largest categories of a particular type of construction excavated in the Roman world. The large number of surviving remains and their regional variety make bathhouses vital for the study of the local societies in the Roman-Byzantine period. This book presents the archaeological evidence of close to 200 Roman-style bathhouses from the region of Iudaea/Syria-Palaestina and Provincia Arabia, part of the provinces of the Roman East, constructed from the reign of Herod the Great (second half of the 1st century BCE) to the end of the Umayyad rule (mid-8th century CE). The bathing complexes of the Roman, Byzantine, and the Early Islamic periods, ranging from large public thermae to small bathing suites, are for the first time analysed as unified data with an unprecedented amount of detail, considering a variety of parameters - from dating and setting, through building techniques and materials, to plans and decorations. Typologies of the bathhouses and their components are supplemented by exploration of the socio-cultural insight provided by this particular type of construction. The historical narrative of the regional bathing facilities is updated in the light of new information. The full raw data used for the study is provided in the expandable open-access online database.

Last updated 6/2018
MP4 | Video: h264, 1280x720 | Audio: AAC, 44.1 KHz
Language: English | Size: 977.62 MB | Duration: 0h 44m
Raising Awareness about an Ancient and Endangered Legacy

T.E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia's Secret Dispatches during the Arab Revolt, 1915-1919"
English | ISBN: 1399010182 | 2021 | 272 pages | EPUB | 4 MB
T. E. Lawrence's dispatches during the Arab Revolt have been published before, but only in an edited and incomplete form, as they were printed for a strictly limited wartime readership in the Arab Bulletin. Now, in this scholarly edition, they are published in full for the first time. They give us a direct inside view of his dealings with the Arab leaders and show us how he presented them to his superiors in Cairo. These wartime writings reveal vividly his impressions of the periods he spent in the desert and the conditions he found there, and they record how the Arab uprising developed and how he became increasingly involved in it. They make fascinating reading for, in his sometimes outspoken way, he reported on the military potential of the Arab fighters and recommended how they should be supported in their struggle against the Ottoman empire.

Nora Derbal, "Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism "
English | ISBN: 1316513475 | 2022 | 336 pages | PDF | 15 MB
In this innovative study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah, Nora Derbal employs a 'bottom-up' approach to challenge dominant narratives about state-society relations in Saudi Arabia. Exploring charity organizations in Jeddah, this book both offers a rich ethnography of associational life and counters Riyadh-centric studies which focus on oil, the royal family, and the religious establishment. It closely follows those who work on the ground to provide charity to the local poor and needy, documenting their achievements, struggles and daily negotiations. The lens of charity offers rare insights into the religiosity of ordinary Saudis, showing that Islam offers Saudi activists a language, a moral frame, and a worldly guide to confronting inequality. With a view to the many forms of local community activism in Saudi Arabia, this book examines perspectives that are too often ignored or neglected, opening new theoretical debates about civil society and civic activism in the Gulf.

Rachael M. Rudolph, "Counterterrorism in Saudi Arabia: New Approaches to Radical Threats "
English | ISBN: 1999878701 | 2017 | 272 pages | EPUB | 805 KB
As jihadist extremism, and its manifestation as Al Qaeda, began to spread - even in the years before 9/11 - Saudi Arabia became a principal target. Jihadists identified the country as the first state against which they could mount a concerted effort to destabilise, undermine and subvert the authority of its central government and its ruling elites. This prompted the Saudis to take defensive initiatives which were to become widely recognised as an effective way to deal with extremism. The key element of the Saudi approach was to lace their hard confrontation of the extremists with subtle, soft mechanisms to undermine the will of actual and potential terrorists. The efforts ranged from interdiction of funding terrorist groups to the deployment of social and psychological pressures aimed at steering extremists away from their cause. This included welfare inducements whereby perpetrators were persuaded by material benefits - state support to families and individuals, housing allowances, educational opportunities - to abandon their political goals in favour of a return to family and society. This book charts the course of the Saudi terrorist rehabilitation programme and makes vital reading for all who, either directly or indirectly, have an interest in following the emergence of international terrorism.

English | 2015 | MP3 | M4B | ASIN: B016WNG8TU | Duration: 9:28 h | 260 MB
Gertrude Bell, Georgina Howell / Narrated by Sian Thomas, Adjoa Andoh

Saudi Arabia 1975 - 2020
by Anthony Axon and Susan Hewitt
English | 2022 | ISBN: 9004512489 | 784 Pages | True PDF | 10.4 MB

Mesopotamia & Arabia (Roman Conquests) by Lee Fratantuono
English | January 13, 2021 | ISBN: 1473883261 | True EPUB/PDF | 192 pages | 19.8/34 MB
This volume explores the Roman invasions and military operations in two distinct yet related areas: Mesopotamia and Arabia. In these far-flung regions of the ancient known world, Rome achieved the greatest point of expansion in the history of her Empire. Under the reign of the Emperor Trajan, the Roman Empire reached the point of maximum expansion made famous by maps of the world circa AD 120.