David McDowall (author)

David Buchanan McDowall (born 1945) is a British author specialising in Middle Eastern and British history.

Background
Born in London in 1945, he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. and St John’s College, Oxford where he studied Islamic History and Modern Middle East Studies under Albert Hourani

Career
Royal Artillery, in Britain and Hong Kong, 1965-70; British Council, in Bombay and Baghdad, 1972-77; the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Beirut and Vienna, 1977-79; self-employed thereafter, Oxfam relief worker Lebanon 1982, full-time research and writing from 1983.

Personal Life
Married to writer Elizabeth Laird, in 1975; two children: Angus, journalist, and William, academic.

Selected Publications
Middle East


 * Lebanon: A Conflict of Minorities (Minority Rights Group, 1983), ISBN 0 946 690 07 3.
 * Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond (IBTauris, 1989), ISBN 1 85043 131 0, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990), ISBN 0-520 0602 1
 * Europe and the Arabs: Discord or Symbiosis? (Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1992), ISBN 0 905031 53 9
 * A Modern History of the Kurds (IBTauris, London & New York, 1996, 1997 2000 and 4th ed., 2021) ISBN 978 0 7556 0079 3.

Articles: ‘Clarity of Ambiguity? The Withdrawal Clause of Resolution 242’, International Affairs, vol. 90, no. 6, November 2014 ‘The Two-State Solution: What Europe must do and why’, Open Democracy, November, 2016

Britain


 * An Illustrated History of Britain (Longman, 1989) ISBN 9780582749146
 * Britain in Close-up (Longman, 1993), ISBN 9780582064614
 * Hampstead Heath (co-authored by Deborah Wolton, Frances Lincoln 2007), ISBN 9780711226531

Children’s Books


 * The Palestinians (Franklin Watts, 1986), ISBN 978 0 86313 484 5, winner of The Other Award 1987
 * The Columbus Project Book (Hodder, 1992), ISBN 9780340527801
 * The Spanish Armada (Batsford, 1988), ISBN 9780713456714.

British Landscape Guides (self-published)


 * Richmond Park: The Walker’s Guide (1996, 2006), ISBN 9780952784746
 * Hampstead Heath: The Walker’s Guide co-author Deborah Wolton, (1998, 2021), ISBN 9781838198015
 * The Thames from Hampton to Richmond Bridge: The Walker’s Guide (2002), ISBN 9780952784722
 * The Thames from Richmond to Putney Bridge: The Walker’s Guide (2005), ISBN 9780952784739
 * Windsor Great Park: The Walker’s Guide (2007, 2021), ISBN 9781838198008.
 * Bute: A Guide (2010) ISBN 9780952784777
 * West Surrey: Walks into History (2013) ISBN 9780952784784