Some 3000 pages of primary source material contain a detailed study of activist movements and personalities, researched from British Government archives, relating to twentieth-century subversive groups and individuals in the Middle East. The coverage includes major categories of Arab nationalists and pan-Arabists with aspirations to Arab unity, as well as activists with specific territorial demands and other anti-régime dissidents. Rather than a political history of any one region, it instead attempts to supplement and to raise questions about the usual accounts of events. Leading figures, and unknown or previously unremarked participants, and organisations both large and small, are traced against the unfolding events of the twentieth century. The many groups referred to include: Society for Arab Revival; Young Turks; Lebanese Revival; Al-Fatah; Reform Society of Basra; Arab Revolutionary Society; Palestine Arab Party; Todamun al-Akhawi; Druse rebels; Shakib Arslan; the Liberation Society; Iraq Independence Party; Arab Ba´ath Movement; Moslem Brotherhood; Omani Revolution Council.
