Behind the headlines
Christopher Catherwood, summer writer-in-residence, teaches and writes about the history of Middle East conflicts.
Catherwood teaches history behind current events
The deteriorating situation in the Middle East saddens but doesn’t surprise Richmond’s summer writer-in-residence Christopher Catherwood.
An Oxford graduate and the author of several books on the Middle East, including Churchill’s Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq, Catherwood teaches history at Cambridge University during the academic year and University of Richmond during summer session. Catherwood was first introduced to the University by his wife, Paulette Moore Catherwood, W’74.
“I got to know the history department in 1994 and started teaching for the summer school in 1999,” Catherwood recalls. “As a writer-in-residence, I’ve gotten most of my books finished here.”
Politics and the Middle East aren’t new subjects for Catherwood. His father was a businessman-turned-politician who served as vice president of the European Parliament. His mother was an Oxford graduate.
“I was brought up with history,” Catherwood comments. “I got interested in politics early on. In the 1960s and early 1970s my father was a government advisor for the National Economic Development Council.”
Catherwood attended the high school of Westminster Abbey, where he and his classmates got the opportunity to observe debates in the House of Commons. During his time at Oxford’s Balliol College, Catherwood worked for both the labor and conservative parties.
A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Catherwood also has served as a consultant to the Strategy Unit of Tony Blair’s cabinet.
“I worked in the Admiralty Building in central London where Winston Churchill was Lord of the Admiralty, first in 1914 and then 1939,” Catherwood says. “It felt very historic.”
Catherwood became interested in the Balkans during college.
“I went to a lot of international conferences for students, and I met people from the Balkans and central Europe, as well as the Middle East,” he explains. “That area was so different from western European history that I thought it would be nice to study something quite different.”
While studying for his master’s degree from Cambridge, Catherwood visited dissident friends in the communist bloc and the Middle East. He was in Lebanon for a brief stay during the country’s 15-year civil war, just a year after the Palestine massacres in 1982.
“That was almost too exciting,” he observes. “It was very scary. It gives you a different perspective.”
Catherwood was staying on the campus of the American University of Beirut, an international refuge from the fighting.
“I got to understand how life is lived in that environment, how they cope in extraordinarily difficult times,” he comments. “I would have gone crazy, but for them it’s part of life. Each morning they would listen to the radio to see which part of the city was safe, and they would take that course.”
The unrest that exists in the Middle East can be traced back to Winston Churchill, Catherwood says.
“Churchill made a mistake with calamitous consequences and unseen repercussions extending into the 21st century,” he explains. “He created the artificial monarchy of Iraq in 1921, forcing together Sunni Muslim Kurds, Sunni Muslim Arabs and Shiite Muslims under a single ruler and unwittingly produced a Middle Eastern powder keg. When he created the country, Churchill didn’t know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.”
The fighting today, Catherwood says, “is like déjà vu all over again as Yogi Berra said. It’s imploding like Yugoslavia did. Churchill left us with the inheritance we have now.”
Catherwood believes the situation will get worse before getting better.
“Once our troops leave, they really will start killing each other,” he says. “Extremist Shiites believe this is Armageddon.”
Catherwood admits he’s become a news junkie, watching CNN and Fox News and reading a myriad of newspapers.
“Watching it is absolutely gripping,” he says. “In my two classes this summer, I’m teaching the historical background to what the students are reading and watching.”
A recent book signing at the campus bookstore was one of Catherwood’s most well attended. He also will be teaching about the Middle East at the Osher Institute on campus.
“I’ve never taught so much in my life,” he says. “It’s wonderful.”
To order Churchill’s Folly, visit the bookstore’s Web site.