Robin Leonard Bidwell

Robin ( "Ron" ) Leonard Bidwell (* 1929 in the UK, † 1994 in Coney Weston, Suffolk, UK ) was a British Orientalist. He has published numerous works on the British and French colonial history.

After his education at Stonyhurst College, at the Downside School and at Pembroke College, Cambridge Bidwell was initially sent as a sergeant of Military Intelligence in the Sueskanalzone before it from 1955 to 1959 as a Political Officer in the Western Aden Protectorate ( hinterland of the British colony of Aden) acted - a kind of resident or authorized by the Governor " guide" in the under British Protectorate South Yemen emirs. Then he traveled on behalf of the University of Cambridge to 1965, all Middle Eastern states and obtained his doctorate in 1968 on the history of the French administration in Morocco. From 1968 until his retirement in 1990, he was secretary of the Middle East Centre at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge.

From 1980 until his death Bidwell worked almost exclusively on his masterpiece Dictionary of Modern Arab History - An A to Z of over 2,000 entries from 1798 to the present day, which he dedicated to his wife Leila, whom he had married only when he already was about 50 years old.

Works (selection)

• Guide to Government Minister (1971 /73)
• Affairs of Kuwait (1971 /73)
• Affairs of Arabia (1971 /73)
• Morocco Under Colonial Rule - French Administration of Tribal Areas 1912-1956 (1973 )
• Arabian Studies (1974 )
• Travellers in Arabia ( 1976)
• Guide to African Ministers (1978 )
• The Two Yemens (1983 )
• Arabian Gulf Intelligence ( 1985)
• Arabian Personalities of the Early Twentieth Century (1986 )
• The Bulletin of the Arab Bureau in Cairo 1916-1919 (1986 )
• New Arabian Studies (1993 )
• Dictionary of Modern Arab History ( 1998)