'Between the devil of the desert and the deep blue sea': re-orienting Kuwait, c.1900-1940

In part, this act of re-orientation seeks to advance our knowledge of Kuwait before oil, a period and place still neglected by many commentators and scholars. But it also forms part of a wider concern to treat 'empty' desert and steppe 'spaces' as arenas of activity in their own right, capable of exerting significant influence on the polities around them. More broadly, then, Kuwait provides an excellent place to test the power and reach of desert dynamics, and to explore the interplay between maritime and desert influences in global history.