PHILBY, H. St. J.B. Arabia. London: Ernest Benn Limited. 1930.
8vo. Original cloth, lettered in gilt; pp. xxii, 387; one folding map; lightly sunned on spine, inner hinges professionally reinforced, a little foxing initially, bookplate removed from front paste-down, otherwise a good copy.
First edition. Published for Ernest Benn's Modern World Series, which aimed "to provide a balanced survey, with such historical illustrations as are necessary, of the tendencies and forces, political, economic, intellectual, which are moulding the lives of contemporary states". Philby accordingly devotes chapters to the Wahhabi empires, Ibn Sa'ud, Ibn Rashid, and related topics. The year this book came out Philby quitted British services and converted to Islam.
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