The British became the dominant power in the Arab Gulf in the late eighteenth a nd early nineteenth centuries. The conventional view has justified Brithish imperial expansion in the Gulf region because of the need to suppress Arab piracy.

This book challenges the myth of piracy a nd argues that the threat of piracy was created by the East India Company ofr strictly commercial reasons. The Company was determined to increase its share of Gulf trade with India at the expense of the native Arab traders, especially the Qawasim in the lower Gulf. However, the company's Government in Bombay did not possess the necessary warhips to defeat the Qawasim fleet. The Company had to persuade the British Government to commit the British navy to achieve this dominance. Acco r dingly the East India Company o r chestrated a campaign to misrepresent the Qawasim as pirates who threatened all maritime activity in the no r thern Indian Ocean a nd adjacent waters. Any misfo r tune that happened to any ship in the area was capriciously attributed to the ",Joasmee pirates",. This campaign was to lead eventually to the sto r iming of Ras al-Khaimah a nd the destruction of the Qawasim.

ba sed on extensive a nd careful use of the Bombay Archives, which have previously never been used by researchers, this book provides a tho r ough reinterpretation of a vital period in Gulf histo r y. It also illuminates the style a nd method of the East India Company at a critical period in the expansion of the British Empire.