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ConnectionP R E S B Y T E R I A N
A Review of Cairo 1921
By the Rev. Daniel Scott, St. John’s
Presbyterian Church in Bradford
West Gwillimbury, Ont.
Cairo 1921: Ten Days that Made
the Middle East
Written by C. Brad Faught
Yale University Press, 2022
During the COVID-19 lockdown,
my friend and colleague at Tyn-
dale University, unable to teach in
person, completed his manuscript
for Cairo 1921: Ten Days that
Made the Middle East. Professor
Faught said, “Everyone had to
come up with their own way of
enduring the upheavals of those
unlovely months; working on this
book about the Cairo Conference
of 1921 was mine” (p. ix).
The “unlovely months” related
to the pandemic were followed
by the horrific events of October
7, 2023, resulting in the ongo-
ing Israel–Hamas Hostage War
crisis. A month or so before the
hostilities had begun, I read Dr.
Faught’s book and it had given
context to the current affairs.
Faught provides a clear overview
of the Cairo Conference in 1921,
based on his careful reading of
the personal letters, cablegrams
and conference documents of the
significant gathering convened in
Cairo, Egypt in 1921, which led to
the creation of the modern “Mid-
dle East” (a term that was just
beginning to be used). Insights
into the present-day situation can
be greatly aided by reading this
measured, careful analysis of the
founding of what has become the
nation states of Iraq and Jordan
as part of the Sherifan Solution,
and the eventual establishment of
a Jewish homeland—the future
state of Israel.
The Cairo Conference in 1921
had left an indelible imprint on the
region in an attempt to redraw the
map of the Middle East after the
First World War and the collapse
of the Ottoman Empire. It was
convened by Winston Churchill
and included such significant per-
sonalities as the Arab advocate T.
E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia,
who was as much of an inter-
national celebrity then as Taylor
Swift is today) and the Arabic-
speaking Gertrude Bell. Although
dominated by the British, other
voices were heard in an ambi-
tious, albeit unsuccessful, bid to
create modern nation states in the
region.
In a conversation with Sir John
Jenkins, held at the University
of Cambridge’s Centre for Geo-
politics on October 18, 2024,
Professor Faught had referred to
the misguided understanding of
many chronologists of the impor-
tant Cairo Conference. He said it
was, “dubbed by some as politi-
cal theatre, Winston’s folly, hot air
and aeroplanes, a kind of political
stunt (unserious),” but after pok-
ing around in archives to prepare
biographies of Allenby and Kitch-
ener, Faught had come to a differ-
ent conclusion. This led him to
surmise that the Cairo Conference
needed to be given a thorough
analysis and not rely on charac-
terizations. The result, says Sir
John Jenkins, is a “beautifully
written” account of an important
geopolitical event.
The book attempts to probe
the official mind and to determine
what the participants were think-
ing and their motivations. Paris
1919 and San Marino 1920 have
received more attention, but Cairo
1921 had not been examined,
probed and interpreted. Faught
gives attention to important and
unresolved matters, such as:
how to create unity through Brit-
ish wartime policy; what to do
with the Balfour Declaration (a
public statement issued by the
British government that declares
support for the establishment of
“a national home for the Jewish
people” in Palestine), the Sykes-
Picot Agreement (a secret accord
between Britain and France in di-
viding up the Ottoman Empire),
and the McMahon-Hussein corre-
spondence (a series of letters that
implied the British government
would recognize Arab independ-
ence in a large region). Faught
does a masterful job of explaining
how these items were discussed
and decided upon.
Not only does Cairo 1921 help
us to understand this significant
conference, but it also provides
a way for the reader to become
aware of the major actors (“com-
prising just thirty-nine delegates”
(p. 97), and places, such as the
Savoy Palace Hotel and the “opu-
lent riverside Semiramis Hotel”
(p. 92). And Faught does so, on
at least two occasions, with hu-
morous anecdotes.
The first anecdote is set up in
the preface when Faught explains
the iconic photograph of the
event. Churchill, his wife Clemen-
tine Churchill, Gertrude Bell, T. E.
Lawrence and Walter Thompson
are seated on camels in front of
the Sphinx. Bell and Lawrence,
“veterans both of long passages
in the desert, had in the past spent
months riding camels… Church-
ill and Clementine, on the other
hand, had never ridden a camel in
their lives” (p. 2). Much later in the
book, Faught describes the result:
“En route, Churchill endured an
uncomfortable moment when his
camel’s saddle loosened, causing
him to slide off its back and land
with a thump in the sand. ‘How
the mighty have fallen,’ quipped
Clementine” (p. 135).
The second humorous situa-
tion happened at “the reception
hosted by the Allenby’s at the
British Residency at the conclu-
sion of the opening day of the
Cairo Conference.” Apparently,
Sir Geoffrey Archer, the governor
of British Somaliland, arrived at
the reception with his two playful
lion cubs in tow. The British Resi-
dency had tremendous tropical
gardens overlooking the Nile. In
the garden lived a marabou stork.
“It was something of a pet to the
high commissioner and as such
the massive bird had taken to
following him around…guarding
him in a distinctly jealous manner
against any human or animal in-
trusions” (p. 100). Imagine what
happened when the cubs and
stork came into contact. Based
on Lord Allenby’s letters, Faught
describes how the cubs and stork
“provided a welcome distrac-
tion from the serious business of
state-making” (p. 110).
Faught’s attention to detail in
Cairo 1921 is precisely what
makes it a good read. And, hope-
fully, it will help readers better un-
derstand the conflicts in the Mid-
dle East today.
Evangelism in an Age of Despair
By the Rev. Blair D. Bertrand,
international mission staff
Evangelism in an Age of Despair:
Hope Beyond the Failed Promise
of Happiness
By Andrew Root
Baker Academic, 2025
Full disclosure: I read a draft of
this book before it was published.
Even more full disclosure: I’ve
read every book that Andrew Root
has written, most also in draft. We
have been long-time friends and
collaborators. We’ve even written
articles and books together. Safe
to say, I am biased and I know his
work. So, I think that I’m qualified
to say that Root’s latest book,
Evangelism in an Age of Despair,
uses his regular formula to push
his general project into the area
of evangelism. That regular for-
mula includes a fictional narrative
thread that gives some flesh to
the ideas. Here, the story centres
on the relationships between a
pastor and a small group of wom-
en who are there for each other
in the highs and, especially, the
lows. Even more than some of his
other stories, this one really lands
and is well told.
The formula also has a histori-
cal component. Root constructs
genealogies of ideas, tracing them
back from our current context to
their origins in the past. In this
case, he goes back to French phi-
losopher Montaigne and traces the
idea of happiness backwards and
forwards through time. This leads
into the third part of the formula,
a sharp-eyed critique of our con-
temporary setting. Many will be
familiar with Root’s Ministry in a
Secular Age series, where he uses
the work of Canadian philosopher
Charles Taylor to great effect.
Here, he adds Stephen Toulmin
and Byung-Chul Han. He focuses
on the pursuit of happiness as
a life goal and how this will ulti-
resources from the past. Here, it
is a church mother, Macrina, and
Boethius and Gerson.
For those most familiar with
Root’s recent work, this book
might surprise, because it returns
to a theme he has explored ex-
tensively in earlier works, such
as The Promise of Despair: The
Way of the Cross as the Way of
the Church. Following along the
lines of theologians like Canadian
Douglas John Hall, Root is a theo-
logian of the cross. The cross is
a hard sell at any time because
it wraps God’s identity up in suf-
fering and death. When it comes
to contemporary approaches to
evangelism, the cross is a definite
stumbling block. This is Root’s
point. When we centre happiness
as the goal of life, then evangelism
becomes a way of achieving that
happiness. Accept Jesus Christ
as personal Lord and Saviour and
your life will be better. Root does
not deny that the good news does
make life better, but he proposes
an alternative—we enter into the
life of God through the suffering
of Jesus on the cross.
Root is one of the most impor-
tant voices writing about practi-
cal theology in the world today.
We neglect his scholarship at our
peril. I am unabashedly a booster.
But his writing is not for every-
one. This is not the book to hand
to a Session for a study before
launching a new evangelism cam-
paign, for two reasons. First, he
goes deep into areas where many
would want a surface treatment.
Second, his thinking doesn’t lead
to clear pragmatic outcomes. He
is not impractical—far from it with
the stories, the cultural engage-
ment, the connections to church
life. But there is no program here,
so pragmatically oriented people
will get frustrated. With these ca-
veats, this book has much to of-
fer a church looking forward with
hope and possibility.
mately fall short as being fulfilling.
Finally, the formula addresses a
core practice of the church. Here,
it is evangelism, which is critiqued
in its current form and a counter-
intuitive alternative is proposed.
The critique is that the church has
associated evangelism with happi-
ness when, in fact, the good news
is for us in our suffering. Part of
the constructive work draws on