Articles From Our Experts

An overview of the key moments from the history of interaction between the British and Kuwait, as illustrated through the India Office Records.

Country Profile: Kuwait

Kuwait’s Majlis Movement: National and Regional Developments Brought into Focus

The movement for political reform in Kuwait in 1938 signified change in the region and highlights the country’s – and Britain’s – response to the ideas and forces that delivered it.

Kuwait’s Majlis Movement: National and Regional Developments Brought into Focus

Finding Aid: IOR/R/15/5 Political Agency, Kuwait (1904-1949)

An overview of the records created by the UK’s Political Agency at Kuwait between 1904 and 1949, and an examination of some of the subjects covered.

Finding Aid: IOR/R/15/5 Political Agency, Kuwait (1904-1949)

Hidden Treasures: Reflections on Traditional Music in Kuwait

Kuwait has maintained a thriving traditional music culture; in particular bahri, or sea music, and ṣawt have remained at the heart of the music scene.

Hidden Treasures: Reflections on Traditional Music in Kuwait

Kuwait, Carnegie, and Terrestrial Magnetic Observations

How geophysicists working in the Gulf were able to contribute in the 1930s to the scientific community’s understanding of the earth’s magnetic field.

Kuwait, Carnegie, and Terrestrial Magnetic Observations

The Kuwait Cat’s Meat Crisis

The arrest of a British Subject on spurious charges makes plain Britain’s dominant position in Kuwait in the late 1930s.

The Kuwait Cat’s Meat Crisis

Shaikh Ahmad goes to England: The Politics of Official State Visits

Despite inauspicious beginnings, Shaikh Aḥmad al-Jābir Āl Ṣabāḥ’s official visit to England in 1919 proved a success.

Shaikh Ahmad goes to England: The Politics of Official State Visits

‘Calls himself an Englishman’: The shifting loyalties of Harry Philby

How the anti-British sentiments of a British adviser assisted the foundation of Saudi Arabia.

‘Calls himself an Englishman’: The shifting loyalties of Harry Philby