Local and Regional History of the Arabian Gulf.
On the archaeological history of the Arabian Peninsula see,
On the archaeological history of the Arabian Peninsula see,
Magee, Peter. (2014). The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 3 January 2016, from <http://www.myilibrary.com.ezproxy.hct.ac.ae?ID=602910>
A study of local and regional history of the Arab Gulf may be compiled by conducting oral histories and interviews of elders, family members and others in your neighborhoods. An excellent work that makes use of oral history is Honour before Contentment.
Several
archives and oral history projects have been developed in the UAE and in the
Arab Gulf. Among the archives are the Juma Al Majid Center in Dubai, and
the Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qassimi
Centre of Gulf Studies. Various compilations of oral histories have
been published and are more widely available.
These include the series, Al-imārāt fī thākira ibna`iha: al-hayat al-ijtima’iyah (The Emirates in
the Memory of its Sons and Daughters) and other similar works (Abdalrahman,
2013).
These collections offer students examples of interviews and oral histories that
they may compare with their own interviews of family members and elder
acquaintances in their community.
A local history oral history project on Ras al-Khaimah is available in our e-library through the Sharjah libraries. Lancaster, William, and Lancaster, Fidelity. Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients : Honour is in Contentment : Life Before Oil in Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE) and Some Neighbouring Regions. Berlin, DEU: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 6 May 2015.
A local history oral history project on Ras al-Khaimah is available in our e-library through the Sharjah libraries. Lancaster, William, and Lancaster, Fidelity. Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients : Honour is in Contentment : Life Before Oil in Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE) and Some Neighbouring Regions. Berlin, DEU: Walter de Gruyter, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 6 May 2015.
Sources and Histories of the Gulf in Modern History
A key work on the modern history of the Gulf region was by the Kuwaiti sociologist Khaldoun al-Naqeeb, Society and State in the
Gulf and Arab Peninsula: A different perspective. (L. M. Kenny, Trans.)
London: Routledge. (1990)
The history of
the Gulf has benefitted greatly from several new generations of historians and
histories written in the past few decades.
Principal among these are the books of H.E. Sultan Muhammad Al Qassimi,
and ruler of Sharjah, whose, The Myth of Piracy in the Gulf (Qassimi, The Myth of Piracy in the Gulf, 1986) [HCT library]
and Power Struggles and Trade in the Gulf 1620-1820 (Qassimi, 1999) [HCT library] are important and
foundational works for understanding the history of the Gulf region and the
Lower Gulf in particular.
The Ottomans
and the Gulf: To understand the rivalry
of the Ottoman Empire and European powers and their empires in exerting
influence in the Arabian Gulf, the following works are worth consulting: Frederick Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf (Anscombe F. F., 1997). The Ottomans had tenuous influence and what
we may call an imagined extension of their empire only in the Upper Gulf,
notably in Kuwait and contemporary Qatar, but even less contact and exchange
with the Lower Gulf, or the area of the contemporary UAE and Oman. James Onley, Arabian Frontier of the
British Raj: Merchants, Rulers and the
British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Onley, 2007) [available
through the HCT ebrary – ebooks] provides a valuable discussion of the 19th
century diplomatic and trading rivalrly and agreements.
General
Histories of the Gulf, the Trucial States and the United Arab Emirates:
Among newer
histories of the Gulf region are: David
Commins, Gulf States: A Modern
History (Commins, 2007) [HCT e-brary].
