Papers of Michael Adams

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 50 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 n.d. [?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 n.d. [?1970s].

Michael Evelyn Adams (1920- ), journalist, was born on the 31st May 1920 in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. He married in Beirut, Lebanon, in July 1958, and now lives 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 has been heavily involved with CAABU since its creation in 1967, and became its first Director. He was Editor of Middle East International until 1981, and has also been 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 is also involved with the Palestine Studies Trust.

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.

EUL MS 241/1 material relating to travels and tours; EUL MS 241/2 material relating to CAABU; EUL MS 241/3 material relating to book reviews; EUL MS 241/4 material relating to television series; EUL MS 241/5 material relating to (un)published articles and other writings, lectures and speeches on the Middle East.

Usual EUL arrangements apply.

Listed by Charlotte Berry, Archivist, 18 February 2004, and encoded by Karen Atkinson into EAD 2 June 2004.

Unlisted.

Usual EUL restrictions apply.

A collection of press-cuttings relating to the Middle East is held at the Arab World Documentation Unit, University of Exeter, 1977-2000, donated by Michael Adams and Hugh Mowat.