JAMES BARR
HISTORIAN
LORDS OF THE DESERT
“
“a brilliant, detached and eye-opening narrative that matches his A Line in the Sand in pace. It is a gripping tale of diplomatic legerdemain, political hypocrisy and, once the intelligence boys got going, derring-do. There are even comic moments when the world of Carry on Spying intruded into high politics.”
LAWRENCE JAMES in THE TIMES
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“[a] riveting tale of Great Power competition, skulduggery and backstabbing ... Barr tells a serious story but it is never heavy going. ... The passages on a series of hair-raising intelligence operations led by Kim Roosevelt, a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a career CIA officer, might have been lifted straight from John Le Carré.”
JUSTIN MAROZZI in
THE SUNDAY TIMES
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“beautifully written and deeply researched ... The action of Lords of the Desert takes place largely in the corridors of power. But it goes far beyond classic diplomatic history, the genre of what one clerk said to another, superbly illustrating the constraints of Britain's decline and America's inexorable rise”
IAN BLACK in
THE OBSERVER
BIOGRAPHY
James is a leading historian of the Middle East and author of the widely-acclaimed A Line In The Sand and Lords of the Desert. He is now writing a history of three thousand years of conflict in the Middle East, The Arena, for Headline.
James read modern history at Oxford. He has worked in politics, at the Daily Telegraph, in the City, at the British Embassy in Paris, and has run his own research business. He is a visiting fellow at King's College London. He lives in south London with his wife and their two children.
FUTURE EVENTS
James is mostly writing at the moment. To invite him to speak, get in touch using the email or form below.
CONTACT JAMES
Contact James's agent Felicity Bryan Associates
on +44 1865 513816 or agency@felicitybryan.com
or contact James directly using the form below
Follow James on BlueSky - @jamesbarr.bsky.social