Gertrude Bell: podcast appearances and interviews

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist born on 14 July 1868. She dedicated much of her life to exploring and mapping the Middle East and became influential in British imperial policy-making as an Arabist. Her extensive travels and deep knowledge of the region earned her significant trust among British officials, including High Commissioner for Mesopotamia Percy Cox. Bell participated briefly in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and the 1921 Cairo Conference, where she helped shape the territorial boundaries and governments of the post-War Middle East as part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. She believed in the unstoppable momentum of Arab nationalism and advocated for British alliances with Arab nationalists, supporting the installation of Hashemite monarchies in the regions that are today Jordan and Iraq. Raised in a privileged environment, she received an education at Oxford University and had opportunities to travel widely, developing skills in mountain climbing and equestrianism. Her travels took her through Qajar Iran, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia, where she engaged in archaeological excavations and personally funded digs. During World War I, she joined the Arab Bureau in Cairo and later served as a political officer in Ottoman Mesopotamia. She played a key role in the nation-building of Iraq and was a close confidante of King Faisal. In her later years, she was appointed Honorary Director of Antiquities of Iraq, where she modernized archaeological procedures and promoted education for Iraqi women. Bell also founded the Iraq Museum and served as president of the Baghdad library. She died in 1926 of an overdose of sleeping pills, with her death possibly being a suicide, but she had been in ill health.