Lords of the Desert: Britain’s struggle with America to dominate the Middle East

James Barr (King's College London) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre, chaired by Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College). Thanks to the now-infamous 1953 conspiracy to oust Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, the prevailing wisdom is that Britain and America colluded in the Middle East. In his talk James Barr will challenge this assumption, arguing the opposite was in fact the case: in the quarter century following the battle of El Alamein in 1942, Britain and America were invariably competitors and often outright rivals.