Playing the Game: Western Women in Arabia

by Penelope Tuson

Overview

The lives of the Western women who lived, worked and travelled in Arabia in the first half of the 20th century have been largely ignored by historians. Penelope Tuson tells the stories of these women. Sometimes flamboyant and unconventional, sometimes conservative and conformist, all of them wanted in some way to be a part of British imperial life. Some were prepared to "play the game", others were not and could even be regarded as difficult and dangerous. "Playing the Game" explores how these women negotiated power and position in the Empire and how conventional female roles were defined by the masculine perspecitves and hierarchies of imperial authority, often with the collusion of the women themselves actively, but also sometimes despite their attempts to subvert the stereotypes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781860649332
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/19/2003
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Penelope Tuson was Curator of Middle East Archives in the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Imperial Ambitions
• "Keeping up the Dignity of the Empire": the Viceregal tour of the Gulf
• The Wide of the Political Agent: Emily Overend Lorimer in Bahrain
• Rival Narratives: American Missionaries in the Gulf
• War Work for the Empire: Western Women in Mesopotamia and the Gulf
• Women and the 'New World Order': Anglo-American Perspectives on Colonialism
• 'Women called Wild': Travellers and Orientalists in the Inter-War Years
• The "Beach Pyjama Incident," 1933: Oil, the Arabian Gulf Air Route and the Opening-up of the Coast