Making Space For The Gulf

The Persian Gulf has long been a contested space-an object of imperial ambitions, national antagonisms, and migratory dreams. The roots of these contestations lie in the different ways the Gulf has been defined as a region, both by those who live there and those beyond its shore. Making Space for the Gulf reveals how capitalism, empire-building, geopolitics, and urbanism have each shaped understandings of the region over the last two centuries. Here, the Gulf comes into view as a created space, encompassing dynamic social relations and competing interests. Arang Keshavarzian writes a new history of the region that places Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Peninsula together within global processes. He connects moments more often treated as ruptures-the discovery of oil, the Iranian Revolution, the rise and decline of British empire, the emergence of American power-and crafts a narrative populated by a diverse range of people-migrants and ruling families, pearl-divers and star architects,...