| Description | This collection contains much of interest for researchers specialising in relations between the Middle East and Britain, as the collection contains the working papers of the journalist Michael Adams spanning a period of fifty years. Contained within the collection are: materials relating to travels and tours in the Middle East (correspondence, some draft and published travel articles, brochures, maps, research notes, daily tour reports, personal reflections and diaries) 1953-1997; material relating to Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), including correspondence, annual reports, minutes 1967-2003; material relating to book reviews, including drafts and published copies 1997-2002; material relating to planned television series about the Crusades in the Middle East, undated [? 1970s]; material relating to (un)published articles and other writings, lectures and speeches on the Middle East (mainly Palestine), including drafts, correspondence and personal reflections 1967-2002. Also includes typescript drafts of novel 'A Question of Identity', with notes on plot and characters, undated [? 1970s]. |
| Admin History | Michael Evelyn Adams (1920-2005), journalist, was born on the 31 May 1920 in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. He married in Beirut, Lebanon, in July 1958, and spent many years resident in Devon.
After studying at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and becoming a prisoner in Germany during the Second World War, he eventually turned to journalism. He became Middle East correspondent for the 'Guardian' in 1956, where he remained until 1962 when he took a year's sabbatical in Italy. Following his return to the 'Guardian', he then turned free-lance, but retained informal connections with the paper by writing book reviews and occasional articles. He was virtually the only British journalist to report on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in 1967.
He was heavily involved with CAABU (Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding) since its creation in 1967, and became its first Director. He was Editor of Middle East International until 1981, and was also Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, and Research Fellow, Centre for Arab Gulf Studies (now the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies), University of Exeter. He was also involved with the Palestine Studies Trust. He died in February 2005.
Publications include: 'Publish it not...: the Middle East Cover Up' (with Christopher Mayhew); 'The Untravelled World: a Memoir'; 'Suez and after year of Crisis', 'Umbria', 'Chaos or Rebirth: the Arab Outlook', 'The Churches and Palestine'; 'The Middle East: a Handbook' (ed.), 'The Search for Settlement in the Middle East', 'Signposts to Destruction: Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Territories'. |