I didn’t intend it to be this long. I started the blog in May and just as I was getting into it, was hit by the pressure of the last weeks of university. When I was freed up, I wanted to jump straight in with something I had the material for, and I have a wealth of notes on 1956. It seemed natural to write the story and I thought I could fit it all into a single post at the time. Then I realised that I couldn’t talk about 1956 at all until I covered 1952-through-55, and one post became two, then three – it finally ended at five, but a sixth did threaten to be written.

It’s been interesting to write in ways in which I did not expect in the first week of June, when I mashed the first one out – perhaps that’s why I feel compelled to write this post script. The first post was clunky and not my best work: stick in quotes, prop them up with exposition and call it a day. From Part 2 onwards, the narrative starts to take a much more natural feel, no doubt helped by the fact that I had more contemporary sources to draw on now as well as the influence of Marc Morris, whose The Norman Conquest I was reading at the time. Part 3’s narrative came just as easily, but it was there that I reached a hitch. Once the story got to November 1956, I was stuck for information. It took me a month to go back to the archives and satisfy myself that the story was not available there – a story which in itself is interesting in its own right.

And now, with Part 5 it comes to a satisfactory close – all the more so as I managed to tie it back to the beginning of Part 1. My writing style and ability has developed more than I would have guessed it would, as has my understanding of planning. I certainly don’t intend to write another muti-part series again without making sure I’ve got all the necessary information beforehand first.

With all that said, it’s time to start planning out the next blog.

Bibliography 

The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) FO 371/120544 Internal Political Situation in Bahrain

TNA: PRO FO 371/120545-49 Internal Political Situation in Bahrain

TNA: PRO FO 371/126893-95 Internal Political Situation in Bahrain

TNA: PRO FO 1016/468-70 Bahrain: Internal Political Situation

TNA: PRO FO 1016/551 Internal Political Situation: Bahrain

TNA: PRO FO 8/2180 Internal Political Situation in Bahrain

Papers of Charles Belgrave, 1926-1957

Belgrave, Charles, Personal Column, Librairie Du Liban, Beirut 1972, 1996

Khuri, Fuad, Tribe and State in Bahrain, University of Chicago, 1980

Nakhleh, Emile, Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernising Society, Lexington Books, Plymouth, 1976, 2011

Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs: A History, Allen Lane, London, 2009

Al Wasat News, Important Figures in the Times of the Committee, 14/10/2004 (link) accessed 18/07/2013