21 Facts About Elie Kedourie

Elie Kedourie was a British historian of the Middle East.

Elie Kedourie wrote from a liberal perspective, dissenting from many points of view taken as orthodox in the field.

Elie Kedourie was born in Baghdad; his background was Iraqi Jewish and he grew up in the Jewish quarter, attending the Alliance Francaise primary school and then Shamash School.

Elie Kedourie was educated at the London School of Economics, where he received his undergraduate degree, and at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he worked towards a DPhil.

Elie Kedourie attacked British policy-makers for first creating in 1921 the Kingdom of Iraq out of the former Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra and then imposing "a militantly Arab nationalist regime upon a diverse society".

Elie Kedourie refused to make the changes requested by one of the examiners, Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, and did not get the degree.

For Elie Kedourie, the idea that someone like Lawrence was a romantic hero was absurd as Elie Kedourie saw him instead as an irresponsible adventurer who by encouraging Arab nationalism had created a new state, Iraq that people like him did not belong in.

In 1964, Elie Kedourie was founder and editor of the academic journal, Middle Eastern Studies.

Elie Kedourie was critical of Marxist interpretations of history and nationalism.

Elie Kedourie claimed that nationalism had turned the Middle East into "a wilderness of tigers".

Elie Kedourie documented and criticised what he saw as the British Empire's debilitation by excessive self-criticism.

Elie Kedourie attacked Toynbee for his criticism of the British Empire, arguing that contra Toynbee that the British Empire had been a positive institution whose decline had brought disaster to its former colonies, most notably in the Middle East.

Elie Kedourie argued that multi-national empires like the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire had allowed different peoples to live together in peace, and the break-up of empires had led to wars as nationalists fought each other for dominance.

Elie Kedourie attacked Horne for claiming that it was the French who were responsible for the fact that most of the Algerian Muslims lived in conditions of dire poverty, though he acknowledged that Horne was correct that the racial barriers between the pied-noir and Muslim communities were a source of tension.

Elie Kedourie challenged Horne's account that racism on the part of the French had caused the war, instead arguing that the Algerian National Liberation Front were a ruthless and very small group of radical intellectuals organised along Leninist lines who took advantage of French liberal democracy to wage a very brutal terrorist campaign that targeted both the French and any Muslim who was not with them.

Elie Kedourie argued that the fact Algeria had been a one-party dictatorship under the FLN since independence in 1962 was the "natural" result of the totalitarian mindset of the FLN.

Elie Kedourie stated that by 1958 the French were clearly winning the war and by 1959 had broken the back of the FLN.

Elie Kedourie argued that Charles de Gaulle was the "master of the situation" by 1960 and could have ensured that the Algerian Muslims would have equal rights with the pied-noirs, but instead blinded by other ideas of French greatness chose to grant Algeria independence.

Elie Kedourie's review sparked much debate at the time, and marked the beginning of a historical debate about the legitimacy of terrorism to achieve political goals that continues to the present day.

In 1992, in "The Wretched of Algeria", a review of the book Historie de l'Algerie by the French historian Charles-Robert Ageron, Elie Kedourie condemned Ageron for being sympathetic to the FLN.

Elie Kedourie was married to fellow scholar of the history of the Middle East, Sylvia Elie Kedourie.