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003			SA-PMU
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008			091104s2010 enkab b 001 0 eng
040			_aUKM _beng _cUKM _dYDXCP _dCDX _dSINLB _dC#P _dBWX _dGZM _dMEAUC _dUKMGB _dMIX _dBDX _dA7U _dOCLCA
020			_a9780199581603 (hbk.)
020			_a0199581606 (hbk.)
035			_a(OCoLC)467749128
050		4	_aDS247.O65 _bH36 2010
082	0	4	_a953.53 _222
100	1		_aHamilton, Alastair, _d1941-
245	1	3	_aAn Arabian utopia : _bthe western discovery of Oman / _cby Alastair Hamilton.
260			_aLondon : _bArcadian Library ; _aOxford ; _aNew York : _bIn association with Oxford University Press, _c2010.
300			_a252 p. : _bill. (some col.), maps (some col.) ; _c33 cm.
490	1		_aStudies in the Arcadian Library ; _vno. 5
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 228-238) and index.
520			_aThis is the first full-length scholarly study of the history of the European discovery of Oman. Oman has always been known to travellers sailing between Europe and India or Persia. But it was its coast that was known. Greeks and Romans charted it, medieval merchants traded on it, and the Portuguese conquered its main towns in the early sixteenth century. After the Portuguese had been ejected in 1650, an independent Oman built an empire of its own, stretching round the Indian Ocean from India to Zanzibar. Muscat, the capital, was visited by western powers eager to obtain commercial concessions and political influence. Yet the interior, ruled by local tribes, was all but entirely unknown until the nineteenth century. Only then did a very few, mainly English, explorers venture inland and embark on the true discovery of Oman. But even that was sporadic. As long as there was a powerful ruler, the travellers were protected, but by the late nineteenth century the sultans in Muscat had lost control over the interior, and it was not until well into the twentieth century that western visitors could investigate the south and begin to chart the centre and the west. Oman was thus one of the last Arab countries to be fully discovered. Alastair Hamilton examines this process from the earliest times up to 1970 and discusses the ways in which the slowly growing knowledge of Oman was propagated in the West by travellers, missionaries, diplomats, artists and naturalists, and by those scholars who gradually uncovered the manuscripts and antiquities that allowed them to piece together the history of the area. The protagonists include Carsten Niebuhr, known for his expedition to Yemen; James Wellsted and the officers on the brig Palinurus, sent by the East India Company to survey the Omani coast from 1833 to 1846; James and Mabel Bent, indefatigable explorers of southern Arabia; Bertram Thomas, financial adviser to the sultan; and Wilfred Thesiger. --Book Jacket.
651		0	_aOman _xHistory.
651		0	_aOman _xDiscovery and exploration.
651		0	_aOman _xRelations _zWestern countries.
651		0	_aWestern countries _xRelations _zOman.
710	2		_aArcadian Library (London, England)
830		0	_aStudies in the Arcadian Library ; _vno. 5.
942			_cBOOK
994			_aZ0 _bSUPMU
596			_a1
999			_c579 _d579