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Cargando... Desert Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamiapor Charles Townshend
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  Shrike58 | Oct 13, 2011 |   A book about the CPA, contrasting it with the original British role in Iraq is still waiting to be written. Would be pretty good. (  )1  Quickpint | Sep 13, 2011 |  daleriva | May 9, 2013 | sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
The U.S.-led conquest and occupation of Iraq have kept that troubled country in international headlines since 2003. For America's major Coalition ally, Great Britain, however, this latest incursion into the region played out against the dramatic backdrop of imperial history: Britain's fateful invasion of Mesopotamia in 1914 and the creation of a new nation from the shards of war. The objectives of the expedition sent by the British Government of India were primarily strategic: to protect the Raj, impress Britain's military power upon Arabs chafing under Ottoman rule, and secure the Persian oil supply. But over the course of the Mesopotamian campaign, these goals expanded, and by the end of World War I Britain was committed to controlling the entire region from Suez to India. The conquest of Mesopotamia and the creation of Iraq were the central acts in this boldly opportunistic bid for supremacy. Charles Townshend provides a compelling account of the atrocious, unnecessary suffering inflicted on the expedition's mostly Indian troops, which set the pattern for Britain's follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next seven years. He chronicles the overconfidence, incompetence, and dangerously vague policy that distorted the mission, and examines the steps by which an initially cautious strategic operation led to imperial expansion on a vast scale.Desert Hell is a cautionary tale for makers of national policy. And for those with an interest in imperial history, it raises searching questions about Britain's quest for global power and the indelible consequences of those actions for the Middle East and the world. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)940.4History and Geography Europe Europe Military History Of World War IClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (4.08)
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I think the remainder of the book is somewhat less successful once past the climax of the initial British operation, but Townshend continues with his real subject, which is not so much the conduct of a secondary campaign that was won at too high of a price, but the anatomy of the British official mind. This being the examination of a decision-making process which could barely realize that the conquest of what is now Iraq was an exercise in strategic overstretch, and that had little clue as to the nature of the society being manipulated, until it was too late (the Iraqi uprising of 1920); we're still living with the consequences of those decisions. That Townshend doesn't hit you on the head with the obvious parallels to Operation "Iraqi Freedom" is a point in his favor.
Apart from the somewhat meandering nature of the last third of the work (though that is probably a reflection of the events being examined), my single biggest gripe is that this book really needed more than three maps. (