Michael Quentin Morton

 A Fateful Intrusion is the story of a famous shipping line and its impact on the Arabian Gulf. The British India Line was originally conceived as a service to deliver mail between the main ports of the Gulf and India, and went on to ply its trade in the region for 120 years. The ships of the line opened up the region to wider trading networks, disrupting the dhow trade and shaping the hierarchy of local ports in the process. They brought people, goods and services together with timetables, quarantine regimes and postal services. This book looks at the ambivalent legacy of the steamship age and how it transformed the region. Above all, it is about the meeting of two different worlds, about the people of the Gulf and their changing times.