The article traces a set of regional images in international legal and diplomatic documents leading to the establishment of the Palestine Mandate (1915–22). The analysis suggests that at that important crossroad, when a new world order was imagined and negotiated, a broad, layered and diverse vision of a comprehensive ‘region’ was actively present in the minds of very different actors within the framework of empire. A vast territory was reconstructed as opening up for new ways of rule and of influence, for enhanced development and for dealing with strictly European globalised issues. That this powerful regional vision has been disregarded because of the weight of the subsequent territorial geopolitics in the Middle East is not surprising. Today, however, when classic international law responses – the state on the one hand and international cooperation on the other – prove weak and unstable, and especially vulnerable to ‘new regional threats’, it may be worthwhile to look back at a period in which the region was still imagined as a place of political possibility.

中文翻译：

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重塑一个地区（1915-22 年）：导致巴勒斯坦托管的法律和外交文本中的中东愿景

这篇文章追溯了导致建立巴勒斯坦托管地（1915-22 年）的国际法律和外交文件中的一组区域形象。分析表明，在那个重要的十字路口，当一个新的世界秩序被想象和谈判时，一个广泛的、分层的和多样化的全面“区域”的愿景积极地呈现在帝国框架内的不同行为者的脑海中。重建了广阔的领土，为新的统治和影响方式、促进发展和处理严格的欧洲全球化问题开辟了道路。由于随后中东地区地缘政治的影响，这一强大的地区愿景被忽视，这并不奇怪。然而今天，