Oman book review

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

1 Joseph A. Kechichian, Oman and the World: The Emergence of an Independent Foreign Policy (Santa Monica, RAND Corporation, 1995).

2 A notable example is Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Monsoon Revolution: Republicans, Sultans and Empires in Oman, 1965–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

3 David Holden, Farewell to Arabia (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), pp.217–22; Ian Skeet, Muscat and Oman: The end of an Era (London: Faber & Faber, 1974), pp.163–203; Takriti, Monsoon Revolution, p.154.

4 Energy Institute, Statistical Review of World Energy, https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/resources-and-data-downloads.

5 Jim Krane, ‘Dueling Legacies: Which Sultan Deserves Credit for Oman’s Oil-Driven Development?’, Middle East Journal, Vol.76, No.4 (2023), pp.458–59.

6 ‘Agreed Minute of 22 January 1958, on Muscat Armed Forces, Civil Development and Royal Air Force Facilities’, Historical Summary of Events in the Persian Gulf Shaikhdoms and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman 1953–64 (PG 64), volume II, appendices, pp.252–55, The National Archives, Kew (TNA): FO 464/52.

7 See for example ‘Report by the Under-Secretary of State for War’, 3 February 1958, D (58) 4, (TNA): CAB 131/19.

8 There are numerous documents that discussed this fraught question. See for example, Middleton to Lloyd, 25 February 1959, TNA: FO 371/140110/BA1053/3; Middleton to FO, 7 February 1959, no. 114, TNA: FO 371/140105/BA1052/6/G; Carden to Luce, 11 May 1966, TNA: FO 371/185364/BC1015/24.

9 For a detailed obituary see Hawley to Douglas-Home, 29 March 1973, TNA: FCO 8/2030.

10 J.B. Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West (London: HarperCollins, 1980), pp.142–43.

11 Uzi Rabi, The Emergence of States in a Tribal Society: Oman under Sa’id bin Taymur, 1932–1970 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006), pp.216–17.

12 The Oman archive at the Middle East Centre Archive (MECA), St. Antony’s College, Oxford contains an invaluable collection of documents: https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/research-centres/middle-east-centre/mec-archive/meca-oman-archive.

13 This theme has been examined in detail by B.R. Pridham, ‘Oman: Change and Continuity’, in Ian Richard Netton (ed.), Arabia and the Gulf: From Traditional Society to Modern States: Essays in Honour of M.A. Shaban’s 60^th Birthday (16 November 1986) (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp.132–55.

14 The following documents have been withheld or redacted: TNA: FO 1016/792, 794–796; FCO 8/1418-1421, 1424, 1549-1551; FCO 46/609; PREM 15/537.

15 Tancred Bradshaw and Michael Curtis, ‘Persian Gulf Coups Misrepresented’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.59, No.2 (2023), pp.237–55; Abdel Razzaq Takriti, ‘The 1970 Coup in Oman Reconsidered’, Journal of Arabian Studies, Vol.3, No.2 (2013), pp.55–173; Abdel Razzaq Takriti, ‘Colonial Coups and the War on Popular Sovereignty’, The American Historical Review, Vol.124, No.3 (June 2019), pp.878–909.

16 The following documentary provides useful insights: BBC Radio 4, ‘Document’, broadcast on 23 November 2009, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00ny7nb.

17 Luce to Brenchley, 29 November 1965, TNA: FO 371/185364/BC1015/31.

18 Lucas to Crosland, 1 January 1977, TNA: DEFE 68/307; minute by Bannerman, 19 May 1981, TNA: FCO 8/3951.

19 Sarah G. Phillips and Jennifer S. Hunt, ‘“Without Sultan Qaboos, We Would Be Yemen”: The Renaissance Narrative and the Political Settlement in Oman’, Journal of International Development, Vol.29 (2017), pp.645–60.

20 Hawley to Callaghan 25 February 1975, TNA: FCO 101/1.

21 Hawley to Wright, 25 February and 18 March 1974, TNA: FCO 8/2214.

22 ‘The spoilation of Oman’, undated, MECA: Peyton collection, box 5/1, f. 431.

23 CIA Staff Notes, Middle East, Africa South, Asia, 26 February 1975, CIA: FOIA.

24 PDO memo, ‘Robert B. Anderson and Oman’, January 1972, MECA: Paxton collection, box 10/1.

25 Crawford to Weir, 30 August 1970, TNA: FCO 67/437.

26 World Bank report no. 393a-OM, ‘Current economic position and prospects of Oman’, 31 May 1974, http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/575261468099594069/pdf/multi0page.pdf, p.5.

27 IBRD Board Governors, Resolution no. 271, 14 December 1971, http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/931131468291022196/pdf/851210IBRD27100PUBLIC00Box0382158B.pdf.

28 World Bank ‘Current Economic Position and Prospects of Oman’, 31 May 1974.

29 World Bank report no. 2528-OM, ‘Oman: Current Economic Position and PROSPECTS’, 16 October 1979, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/843071468291646674/pdf/multi0page.pdf.

30 Lucas to Carrington, 29 December 1979, ‘the Oman economy’, TNA: FCO 160/68.

31 Geraint Hughes, ‘Demythologising Dhofar: British Policy, Military Strategy, and Counter-Insurgency in Oman, 1963–1976’, The Journal of Military History, Vol.79, No.2 (April 2015), pp.423–56.

32 James F. Goode, ‘Assisting Our Brothers, Defending Ourselves: The Iranian Intervention in Oman, 1972–1975’, Iranian Studies, Vol.47, No.3, pp.441–62.

33 Human Development Report 2010: The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development (New York: UNDP, 2010), p.27.

34 See for example Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: https://fm.gov.om/policy/principles/.

35 Cited in Uzi Rabi, ‘The Sultanate of Oman: Between Tribalism and National Unity’, in Uzi Rabi (ed.), Tribes and States in a Changing Middle East (London: Hurst, 2016), p.88.

36 Jeremy Jones and Nicholas Ridout, Oman, Culture and Diplomacy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp.145–46.

37 Lucas to Carrington, 18 June 1979, TNA: FCO 8/3329.

38 The most thorough account is J.B. Kelly, Desert Dispute: The Diplomacy of Boundary-Making in South-Eastern Arabia, edited by S.B. Kelly (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2018–2020).

39 Minute by Bannerman, 1 February 1985, TNA: FCO 8/5862.

40 Gwenn Okruhlik and Patrick J. Conge, ‘The Politics of Border Disputes: On the Arabian Peninsula’, International Journal, Vol.54, No.2 (Spring 1999), pp.245–46.

41 Francis Owtram, ‘“Friend to All, Enemy to None”: Oman’s Quiet Diplomacy since 1970’, in Fromherz and al-Salimi (eds), Sultan Qaboos and Modern Oman, pp.439–40.