THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF BERTRAM THOMAS - Minister for the Sultan of Muscat and Oman & the first non-Arab to cross the Empty Quarter. Alarms and Excursions in Arabia is one of two memoirs written by Bertram Thomas about his time in the Arab world. Bertram Thomas started life in an obscure village in England and rose from a British Army officer in Iraq, through Assistant Political Officer to Oman's financial and administrative Minister for it's then ruler, Sultan Taimur. He was a key person in Iraq's early 20th-century development as he was the British political officer for 5 years in southern Iraq and, often as a lone British representative, helped secure the region for Britain during the Iraqi Revolt of 1920 against British rule. In Oman he rose to be the effective deputy for the Sultan, acting as administrator and judge. In Musandam his action helped maintain the exclave within the sultanate. Alarms and Excursions in Arabia is not only a memoir of Bertram Thomas, but also a first-person view point of how an individual can hold together fragmenting regions. This annotated edition gives an extensive background to Thomas and, supporting the grainy original photographs, has modern colour photos to add understanding of the text.