Robin("Rob")Leonard Bidwell (25 August 1927^[1] inSt Giles, London^[2] – 1994 inConey Weston orBury St Edmunds^[3]) was an English orientalist and author. He published many books about Yemen and Arabia as well as about French and British colonial history.

After education atStonyhurst College,Downside School andPembroke College, Cambridge, he was sent asIntelligence Corps sergeant to theSuez Canal Zone. From 1955 to 1959 he served asPolitical officer inWestern Aden Protectorate in the hinterland of present-day Yemen. Thereafter asOxford University Press travelling editor for the Middle East he visited all Middle East and North African countries. In 1965 he returned toCambridge University where he earned his PhD in 1968 about theFrench administration in Morocco. Between 1968 and 1990 he had been Secretary and Librarian of the Middle East Centre in the Faculty of Oriental Studies in the University of Cambridge. From 1980 on he dedicated the rest of his life to his masterpieceDictionary of Modern Arab History – An A to Z of over 2,000 entries from 1798 to the present day.

• Guide to Government Ministers (1971/73)
• Affairs of Kuwait (1971/73)
• Affairs of Arabia (1971/73)
• Morocco Under Colonial Rule – French Administration of Tribal Areas 1912–1956 (1973)
• Arabian Studies (1974)
• Travellers in Arabia (1976)
• Guide to African Ministers (1978)
• The Two Yemens (1983)
• Arabian Gulf Intelligence (1985)
• Arabian Personalities of the Early Twentieth Century (1986)
• The Bulletin of the Arab Bureau in Cairo 1916–19 (1986)
• New Arabian Studies (1993)
• Dictionary of Modern Arab History (1998)

• The British Yemeni Society:Obituary Robin Leonard Bidwell (1929–1994)
• British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Volume 21, Issue 1, 1994:Robin Leonard Bidwell 1929–94
• worldstatesmen.org:States of the Western Aden Protectorate

This article about a British explorer is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• 1920s births
• 1994 deaths
• Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge
• English explorers
• English spies
• English travel writers
• 20th-century British travel writers
• 20th-century British explorers
• English orientalists
• Explorers of Arabia
• English Arabists
• 20th-century English historians
• People from the Aden Protectorate
• British expatriates in Egypt
• People educated at Downside School
• People educated at Stonyhurst College
• People from St Giles, London
• British explorer stubs
• Explorer stubs

• Use dmy dates from April 2022
• Year of birth uncertain
• All stub articles