Sinews of War and Trade
Sinews of War and Trade
Shipping and Capitalismin the Arabian Peninsula
Laleh Khalili
First published by Verso 2020
© Laleh Khalili 2020
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-481-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-483-2 (UK EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-484-9 (US EBK)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khalili, Laleh, author.
Title: Sinews of war and trade : shipping and capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula / Laleh Khalili.
Description: London ; New York : Verso, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “On the map of global trade, China is now the factory of the world. A parade of ships full of raw commodities-iron ore, coal, oil-arrive in its ports, and fleets of container ships leave with manufactured goods in all directions. The oil that fuels China’s manufacturing comes primarily from the Arabian peninsula. Much of the material shipped from China are transported through the ports of Arabian peninsula, Dubai’s Jabal Ali port foremost among them. China’s ‘maritime silk road’ flanks the peninsula on all sides. Sinews of War and Trade is the story of what the making of new ports and shipping infrastructure has meant not only for the Arabian peninsula itself, but for the region and the world beyond. The book is an account of how maritime transportation is not simply an enabling companion of trade, but central to the very fabric of global capitalism. The ports that serve maritime trade, logistics, and hydrocarbon transport create racialised hierarchies of labour, engineer the lived environment, aid the accumulation of capital regionally and globally, and carry forward colonial regimes of profit, law and administration”--Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019052101 (print) | LCCN 2019052102 (ebook) | ISBN 9781786634818 (hardback) | ISBN 9781786634849 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Shipping—Arabian Peninsula. | Capitalism--Arabian Peninsula. | Arabian Peninsula--Commerce. | Arabian Peninsula--Economic conditions.
Classification: LCC HE559.A73 K43 2020 (print) | LCC HE559.A73 (ebook) | DDC 387.5/440953--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052101
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052102
Typeset in Sabon LT by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
For Clare Hemmings and Kris Muhlner
for the sustenance of love, pleasure and friendship
over the years
… whatever is given
Can always be reimagined
Seamus Heaney, ‘The Settle Bed’
Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that grey vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.
Derek Walcott, ‘The Sea Is History’
Contents
Admiralty Charts and the making of routes
‘The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires’
Curzon’s ‘prancing in the Persian puddle’
Creeks and harbours of the Trucial Coast
Making and remaking the land and the sea
Chapter 3 – Palimpsests of Law and Corporate Sovereigns
Weaponising arbitration tribunal