Description
Book SynopsisIn the desert sands of southern Jordan lies a once-hidden conflict landscape along the Hejaz Railway. Built at the beginning of the twentieth-century, this narrow-gauge 1,320 km track stretched from Damascus to Medina and served to facilitate participation in the annual Muslim Hajj to Mecca. The discovery and archaeological investigation of an unknown landscape of insurgency and counter-insurgency along this route tells a different story of the origins of modern guerrilla warfare, the exploits of T. E. Lawrence, Emir Feisal, and Bedouin warriors, and the dramatic events of the Arab Revolt of 1916-18. Ten years of research in this prehistoric terrain has revealed sites lost for almost 100 years: vast campsites occupied by railway builders; Ottoman Turkish machine-gun redoubts; Rolls Royce Armoured Car raiding camps; an ephemeral Royal Air Force desert aerodrome; as well as the actual site of the Hallat Ammar railway ambush. This unique and richly illustrated account from Nicholas Saunders tells, in intimate detail, the story of a seminal episode of the First World War and the reshaping of the Middle East that followed.
Trade ReviewDesert Insurgency is a well-written and lavishly illustrated volume that describes the surveys and excavations of the Great Arab Revolt Project * Benjamin Adam Saidel, Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies *
This painstakingly detailed and richly illustrated book explores the interface between history, archaeology, and anthropology in one marginal desert area of southern Jordan. * A. Rassam, CHOICE *
Table of ContentsMaps 1: Introduction 2: Into the Ghost-Land 3: Archaeology, Material Worlds, and the Arab Revolt 4: The Hejaz Railway: Faith, Conflict, and Afterlife 5: Guerillas and the 'Sultan's Mule' 6: Conflict on Jebel Sherra: Ma'an to the Blockhouse 7: 'Belly of the Beast': Abdullah's Fort to Batn al-Ghoul 8: Forts, Stations, and Ancestors: Wadi Rutm to Tel Shahm 9: Concealment, Raiding, and Ambush: Tooth Hill to Hallat Ammar 10: Beyond the Railway Timeline of Major Events on the Hejaz Railway Between Ma'an to Mudawwara, 1900-2018 Gazeteer
