Conflict and Empire in the Middle East

If understanding the past helps us to make sense of today then the latest work by Dr James Renton, Edge Hill Senior Lecturer in History, offers real insight into one such occurrence - the international media storm that has been witnessed around the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

Dr Renton believes that this furore simply proves that all too little has changed within politics and his front page article in ezine openDemocracy draws upon his research into the British Empire and the Middle East, highlighting the parallels between what he calls "the 19^th century world of imperialism and great power politics" and today's international landscape.  

"It was evident to me that there are strong parallels between the WikiLeaks phenomenon and the Bolsheviks' publication of secret agreements in 1917, which relates to my current research on the post-Ottoman Middle East," explains Dr Renton.  

"The long-term impact of this act on global politics in the early 20^th century gives us some valuable insight into the international landscape today and as openDemocracy has a great reputation for providing probing analysis of world affairs I thought the article would interest its readership" James continues.  

The article reflects Dr Renton's firm belief that historians have an important role to play in demonstrating how events of the past still have real relevance, "As historians we have a tremendous amount to offer political debate, but the challenge we face is to communicate this effectively to governments and the public. You cannot separate contemporary events from what happened in the past - it is all part of one continuum, the unfolding story of humanity, and this cannot be neatly divided into boxes labelled ‘past' and ‘present'," James adds.  

As a specialist in Imperial and Middle Eastern history, with a particular interest in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, Dr Renton has also recently taken part in a television documentary for the Yesterday Channel. "The programme was about Haj Amin al-Husseini, the most prominent Palestinian leader before Yassar Arafat," he explains. "He is most often discussed in public as the Palestinian who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War, and this has been used to de-legitimise his whole career and the cause of the Palestinian Arabs in general. In the documentary, I tried to show that there was a great deal more to his political life, and that the challenges he faced provide a lot of food for thought as we try to understand the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine."  

Dr Renton's first book - The Zionist Masquerade: The Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance, 1914-1918 - was published in 2007, and now, in collaboration with Dr Ben Gidley from Oxford University, he is working on an edited volume based on their 2008 conference on Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe from the Crusades to the present day.  

While these appearances online, in print and on television may provide recognition for the work that staff from the History Department undertakes, Dr Renton believes that they are simply one way in which this work is shared.  

"As a whole, the History team at Edge Hill believe strongly that public engagement is of great importance, whether this is through activities with local schools, the wider community or international media, it is crucial that everyone benefits from the latest research" explains James.