P. J. Vatikiotis: Politics and the Military in Jordan: a study of the Arab Legion. 1921–1957. Frank Cass and Co. 30s.
Professor Vatikiotis sets the tone of his book by dedicating it ‘To the British officers who trained and commanded the legion until 1956 and to their Arab successors’. He refrains from a general critique of the Jordanian army as a means of imperial control and penetration, and confines his analysis to its organizational development and role in the history of Jordan itself. Within these limits, his study is extremely useful both for explaining the resilience of the Hashemite dynasty, and the weaknesses of the Jordanian Army in the face of the latest Israeli attack.