"New ways of doing things are often intellectually messy, if only because nobody
has had the time yet to work out the bugs."

​"technological tools are generally developed in response to certain problems and agendas. As a result their design and maximum functionality is tied to their original aim. Tools also emanate from a cultural context. Their aims reveal what the toolmakers conceptualized as a problem, and what a desirable solution looked like. Thus, technological tools carry a number of embedded assumptions, which in turn can be scrutinized for the aims and cultural values that gave rise to them and that they reinforce. Put another way, they embody a set of cultural values." 

John Gordon Lorimer, was an official of the Indian Civil Service, most of whose career had been on the North West Frontier. In November 1903 he was placed on special duty for a period of six months to compile the Gulf handbook. Lorimer was a conscientious worker with an obsessive appetite for detail. For the next ten years, aided by a small group of equally dedicated researchers, he worked systematically through the government archives in Bombay and Calcutta, carried out field trips and surveys in the Gulf and repeatedly petitioned the Government of India to extend his appointment in order to allow him to complete the work thoroughly. The Government of India acceded to his requests with a far-sightedness for which historians should be grateful, noting that Lorimer´s ´zeal and industry have enabled him to accumulate a mass of fresh information ... and the Gazetteer will amply justify the amount of time and labour spent on it´." 1

"On the morning of Sunday 8 February 1914, John Gordon Lorimer, the officiating British Resident in the Persian Gulf at Bushire, retired to his dressing room to ascertain the exact calibre of his automatic pistol as he wished to order cartridges from Bombay. He was later found lying on the floor, dead, at the age of forty-three, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound." 2

"The Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia was compiled by officials of the British Government of India during the decade after Lord Curzon's Vice-regal tour of the Gulf in 1903. The original intention was to provide British agents and policymakers in the Gulf, India and London with 'a convenient and portable handbook to the places and interests with which they are likely to be concerned'. Better documentation was regarded as an essential prerequisite to the strengthening of British influence in the area during a period of increasing international tension. The resulting five thousand pages far exceeded both in quality and in quantity the expectations of the officials who had commissioned it." "This is the most important single source of historical material on the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Better documentation was regarded as an essential prerequisite to the strengthening of British influence in the area during a period of increasing international tension. The original edition was issued as a secret document by the British Government in India in 1908 and 1915. The range of the Gazetteer is extensive and complex, with descriptive text supported by a variety of annexes and appendices, including historical analyses, texts of treaties and special essays on subjects of interest." "When the Gazetteer was first printed it was classified as Secret and For Official Use. Only a few dozen copies were printed for circulation to British government departments and agencies." 3

The book was declassified in 1955. 4 

"To explore the possibilities of both commerce and conquest Peter dispatched to Iran a young, bright official, Artemii Volynskii, who was given written instructions to note, when passing through the possessions of the Shah, everything about harbours, towns and settlements, and especially about rivers that flow into the Caspian; then in Peter's own hand was added, "and how far along such rivers can one sail from the sea, and whether there is a river that flows into that sea from India"."