The Arabian Geopolitics series was originally conceived to provide comprehensive historical documentary contexts to contemporary geopolitical challenges in the region. If the predominant concentration on the Gulf can be explained by the contemporary or recent geographical focus of territorial contestation, it is refreshing to introduce a new title that concentrates further west on the Red Sea, a region that is as much East African as it is Arabian. Dr Steven Smith’s meticulously assembled collection is the product of both long planning and considerable research.
The Red Sea Region: Sovereignty, Boundaries and Conflict, 1839–1967 collects together nearly 5,000 pages of British government papers in six volumes documenting the political and territorial changes within and between states bordering the Red Sea, or linked with it, including islands and European colonies.
The documents selected range across the following countries or territories: Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, French Somaliland, the Somali coast (later British and Italian Somaliland, and from 1960 Somalia), Ottoman Arabia, the British Mandate of Palestine, Israel, Transjordan renamed Jordan in 1949), the Kingdom of Hijaz, Asir, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Aden Protectorate and Aden.
