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Available
Call number
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Publication
New York : H. Holt and Co., 2009.
Description
History. Nonfiction. HTML: Published with a new afterword from the author�??the classic, bestselling account of how the modern Middle East was created The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts�??including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis, and the violent challenges posed by Iraq's competing sects�??are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War. In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time, showing how the choices narrowed and the Middle East began along a road that led to the conflicts and confusion that continue to this day. A new afterword from Fromkin, written for this edition of the book, includes his invaluable, updated assessment of this region of the world today, and on what this history has to teach… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member dougwood57
World War One brought about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (including a somewhat conditional Jewish Homeland), and the Transjordan were carved out mainly by the British. Turkey established itself as a separate entity
Fromkin’s book was published in 1989 so that it has an interesting historical perspective. The Iranians had thrown out the Americans and the so-called Afghan Arabs had played their (exaggerated) role in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, but 9-11 remained over a decade in the future. Nonetheless, Fromkin detected the strength of Islam as the most important force in the region.
Fromkin notes that the Middle East was the final area of the world to fall to Western (mostly British) imperialism. He also observes that this extension of Western power had long been anticipated with the main question being which country would get how much. In the end the British obtained more paper power than they could reasonable have hoped for, but then they found that by 1922 they had neither the will nor the wherewithal to exert that power. The Great War drained them of both. The British, and to a lesser degree the French and Americans, created weak countries and left major issues such as the fate of Kurds, Jews, and Palestinian Arabs unresolved.
An even more fundamental challenge remained and remains. In every other area of the globe subjected to Western dominance, Western forms and principles prevailed, but Fromkin notes that “at least one of those assumptions, the modern belief in secular civil government, is an alien creed in a region most of whose inhabitants…have avowed faith in a Holy Law that governs all life, including government and politics.” Fromkin puts his finger right on the problem that the West has in understanding much of the region.
Even more daunting, Fromkin argues that the Middle East still has not sorted itself out after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He notes discouragingly that it took Western Europe about more than a millennium to “resolve its post-Roman crisis of social and political identity”. The region’s politics lack any “sense of legitimacy” or “agreement on the rules of the game – and no belief, universally shared in the region…that the entities that call themselves countries or the men who claim to be rulers are entitled to recognition as such.” The last such rulers were the Ottoman sultans.
With regard to the current troubles in Iraq, one fervently wishes that someone in Washington had appreciated the penetrating analysis by the British civil commissioner Arnold Wilson in 1920 about the area just then being called Iraq. While he was called upon to administer the provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, he did not believe they “formed a coherent entity”. As he saw it the Kurds of Mosul would never accept an Arab leader, while the Shi’ite Moslems would never accept domination by the minority Sunnis, but, to directly quote Wilson, “no form of Government has yet been envisaged, which does not involve Sunni domination.” And on and on it goes.
The book features a number of familiar figures, Winston Churchill most prominent among them. Fromkin’s favorable treatment of Churchill strongly suggests that Winston was repeatedly ill-served by subordinates, bad luck, and bad press. By 1922, Churchill was finished as a British politician (or so it seemed). Other major figures include Lord Kitchener, David Lloyd George, T.E. Lawrence (about whom many questions are raised). A plethora of lesser known British and French military and civil leaders abound in the pages of Fromkin’s lengthy tome, not to mention the odd Russia and German. Turkish leaders, such as Enver Pasha and Mustapha Kemal often bewilder their Western counterparts.
Perhaps the oddest historical artifact reproduced by Fromkin was the belief, generally accepted among British intelligence and high-ranking civil and military leaders, in a conspiracy between Prussian generals and Jewish financiers manipulating Russian Bolsheviks and Turkish nationalists to the detriment of British interests! Moreover, in this conspiratorial view, Islam was controlled by Jewry. At this point, the reader is tempted to quietly murmur that the British should go home where they might understand something of what they are about. (The dangers of drawing too direct lessons from history are great and while the US leadership did not harbor any notions quite this crackpot, it bears notice that the US seem not to have understand Iraq, its history, or its people before sending in troops.)
Fromkin produced a fine book, not an easy read, with a wealth of information and an excellent closing summary. It suffered, at times from the size of the subject – the transformation of an entire region during a worldwide war – and the maze of characters and details. A book that bears a second reading and a subject (subjects, really) for further study. Highly recommended.
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including both European (East Thrace) and Asian parts. David Fromkin leads the reader through the changes that occurred between 1914 and 1922 in meticulous detail. Indeed, this reader found the book’s main shortcoming to be the welter of specific facts that sometimes obscured the larger picture. Fromkin’s book was published in 1989 so that it has an interesting historical perspective. The Iranians had thrown out the Americans and the so-called Afghan Arabs had played their (exaggerated) role in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, but 9-11 remained over a decade in the future. Nonetheless, Fromkin detected the strength of Islam as the most important force in the region.
Fromkin notes that the Middle East was the final area of the world to fall to Western (mostly British) imperialism. He also observes that this extension of Western power had long been anticipated with the main question being which country would get how much. In the end the British obtained more paper power than they could reasonable have hoped for, but then they found that by 1922 they had neither the will nor the wherewithal to exert that power. The Great War drained them of both. The British, and to a lesser degree the French and Americans, created weak countries and left major issues such as the fate of Kurds, Jews, and Palestinian Arabs unresolved.
An even more fundamental challenge remained and remains. In every other area of the globe subjected to Western dominance, Western forms and principles prevailed, but Fromkin notes that “at least one of those assumptions, the modern belief in secular civil government, is an alien creed in a region most of whose inhabitants…have avowed faith in a Holy Law that governs all life, including government and politics.” Fromkin puts his finger right on the problem that the West has in understanding much of the region.
Even more daunting, Fromkin argues that the Middle East still has not sorted itself out after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He notes discouragingly that it took Western Europe about more than a millennium to “resolve its post-Roman crisis of social and political identity”. The region’s politics lack any “sense of legitimacy” or “agreement on the rules of the game – and no belief, universally shared in the region…that the entities that call themselves countries or the men who claim to be rulers are entitled to recognition as such.” The last such rulers were the Ottoman sultans.
With regard to the current troubles in Iraq, one fervently wishes that someone in Washington had appreciated the penetrating analysis by the British civil commissioner Arnold Wilson in 1920 about the area just then being called Iraq. While he was called upon to administer the provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, he did not believe they “formed a coherent entity”. As he saw it the Kurds of Mosul would never accept an Arab leader, while the Shi’ite Moslems would never accept domination by the minority Sunnis, but, to directly quote Wilson, “no form of Government has yet been envisaged, which does not involve Sunni domination.” And on and on it goes.
The book features a number of familiar figures, Winston Churchill most prominent among them. Fromkin’s favorable treatment of Churchill strongly suggests that Winston was repeatedly ill-served by subordinates, bad luck, and bad press. By 1922, Churchill was finished as a British politician (or so it seemed). Other major figures include Lord Kitchener, David Lloyd George, T.E. Lawrence (about whom many questions are raised). A plethora of lesser known British and French military and civil leaders abound in the pages of Fromkin’s lengthy tome, not to mention the odd Russia and German. Turkish leaders, such as Enver Pasha and Mustapha Kemal often bewilder their Western counterparts.
Perhaps the oddest historical artifact reproduced by Fromkin was the belief, generally accepted among British intelligence and high-ranking civil and military leaders, in a conspiracy between Prussian generals and Jewish financiers manipulating Russian Bolsheviks and Turkish nationalists to the detriment of British interests! Moreover, in this conspiratorial view, Islam was controlled by Jewry. At this point, the reader is tempted to quietly murmur that the British should go home where they might understand something of what they are about. (The dangers of drawing too direct lessons from history are great and while the US leadership did not harbor any notions quite this crackpot, it bears notice that the US seem not to have understand Iraq, its history, or its people before sending in troops.)
Fromkin produced a fine book, not an easy read, with a wealth of information and an excellent closing summary. It suffered, at times from the size of the subject – the transformation of an entire region during a worldwide war – and the maze of characters and details. A book that bears a second reading and a subject (subjects, really) for further study. Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
This masterful narrative by David Fromkin describes the formation of the modern Middle East between the years 1914-1922: the fabrication of Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia by Britain, the setting of the frontiers of Syria and Lebanon by France, and the creation of the borders of Armenia and
The first prize to be divvied up was the Ottoman Empire. Even before the war, secret pacts divided the “Sick Man of Europe” among the allies in anticipation of its seemingly inevitable demise. But one of Britain’s largest mistakes was underestimating the Turks, both as a military actor and as a people capable of self-determination, in part because of racism.
Another racist current coloring events was a pervasive anti-Semitism among the British governing classes. It caused them to believe that Jews were conspiring with the Germans, the Turks, and of course the Russians for power. (Although many Bolsheviks were born into the Jewish religion, they could be identified as Jews in “racial” terms only.) As Fromkin notes, “The Foreign Office believed that the Jewish communities in America and, above all, Russia, wielded great power.” This led them to bizarre misunderstandings of the motives and goals of their adversaries, and to policy formation geared toward an accommodation of the non-existent Jewish conspiracies they saw looming around every corner.
The story, told from the perspective of British involvement, begins with the decision by the War Minister, Lord Kitchener, to partition the Middle East after the War. After Lord Kitchener’s death in 1916, David Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister) and Winston Churchill (serving in several different capacities) played larger roles in the British enterprise in the Middle East. “Winston Churchill,” Fromkin writes, “above all, presides over the pages of this book: a dominating figure whose genius animated events and whose larger-than-life personality colored and enlivened them.”
Fromkin firmly opposes aspersions on Churchill’s reputation that arose from his policies in WWI. Contrary to statements of Churchill’s contemporaries (with their own reputations to protect), Fromkin’s research shows that Churchill first opposed the Gallipoli option, then tried to make it contingent on a joint army-navy operation, then tried to salvage what was left with what he was given. When disaster ensued (a suspension of the failed campaign after a quarter of a million casualties on Britain’s side and a similar amount on Turkey’s), Churchill was made the scapegoat for the ill-conceived and miscarried engagement.
Churchill’s worth was recognized by British leaders, however, and he continued to help formulate policy even after he left the government. After the war, Churchill alone recognized that Britain’s terms could not be imposed if Britain’s armies left the field; and he most forcefully argued that the Moslem character of Britain’s remaining troops in the East must be taken into account lest the army’s loyalty be compromised.
Woodrow Wilson comes off poorly in Fromkin’s telling -- his insistence on attending peace negotiations upset protocol and added nothing to the process, since he came with “many general opinions but without specific proposals….” “Lacking both detailed knowledge and negotiating skills, Wilson was reduced to an obstructive role….” Naïve and ill-informed, he was manipulated by Lloyd George into furthering Britain’s imperial aims. Back home, Wilson “committed one political blunder after another, driving even potential supporters to oppose him.” Nevertheless, Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” played an influential role in the politics of Europe.
Fromkin ends his fascinating account by observing that following WWI, “administration of most of the planet was conducted in a European mode, according to European precepts, and in accordance with European concepts.” Native political structures and cultures were ignored, destroyed, and/or replaced. But legitimacy cannot be conferred by drawing lines on a map; the legacy of the dissection of the Middle East by the great powers informs our politics yet today, and thus the events discussed in this book remain highly relevant and absorbing.
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Azerbaijan by Russia. Fromkin contends that the conflicts that unsettle the region today are largely a result of the presumptuous manipulation of peoples and places by the imperialist ambitions of the Triple Entente. The first prize to be divvied up was the Ottoman Empire. Even before the war, secret pacts divided the “Sick Man of Europe” among the allies in anticipation of its seemingly inevitable demise. But one of Britain’s largest mistakes was underestimating the Turks, both as a military actor and as a people capable of self-determination, in part because of racism.
Another racist current coloring events was a pervasive anti-Semitism among the British governing classes. It caused them to believe that Jews were conspiring with the Germans, the Turks, and of course the Russians for power. (Although many Bolsheviks were born into the Jewish religion, they could be identified as Jews in “racial” terms only.) As Fromkin notes, “The Foreign Office believed that the Jewish communities in America and, above all, Russia, wielded great power.” This led them to bizarre misunderstandings of the motives and goals of their adversaries, and to policy formation geared toward an accommodation of the non-existent Jewish conspiracies they saw looming around every corner.
The story, told from the perspective of British involvement, begins with the decision by the War Minister, Lord Kitchener, to partition the Middle East after the War. After Lord Kitchener’s death in 1916, David Lloyd George (Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister) and Winston Churchill (serving in several different capacities) played larger roles in the British enterprise in the Middle East. “Winston Churchill,” Fromkin writes, “above all, presides over the pages of this book: a dominating figure whose genius animated events and whose larger-than-life personality colored and enlivened them.”
Fromkin firmly opposes aspersions on Churchill’s reputation that arose from his policies in WWI. Contrary to statements of Churchill’s contemporaries (with their own reputations to protect), Fromkin’s research shows that Churchill first opposed the Gallipoli option, then tried to make it contingent on a joint army-navy operation, then tried to salvage what was left with what he was given. When disaster ensued (a suspension of the failed campaign after a quarter of a million casualties on Britain’s side and a similar amount on Turkey’s), Churchill was made the scapegoat for the ill-conceived and miscarried engagement.
Churchill’s worth was recognized by British leaders, however, and he continued to help formulate policy even after he left the government. After the war, Churchill alone recognized that Britain’s terms could not be imposed if Britain’s armies left the field; and he most forcefully argued that the Moslem character of Britain’s remaining troops in the East must be taken into account lest the army’s loyalty be compromised.
Woodrow Wilson comes off poorly in Fromkin’s telling -- his insistence on attending peace negotiations upset protocol and added nothing to the process, since he came with “many general opinions but without specific proposals….” “Lacking both detailed knowledge and negotiating skills, Wilson was reduced to an obstructive role….” Naïve and ill-informed, he was manipulated by Lloyd George into furthering Britain’s imperial aims. Back home, Wilson “committed one political blunder after another, driving even potential supporters to oppose him.” Nevertheless, Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” played an influential role in the politics of Europe.
Fromkin ends his fascinating account by observing that following WWI, “administration of most of the planet was conducted in a European mode, according to European precepts, and in accordance with European concepts.” Native political structures and cultures were ignored, destroyed, and/or replaced. But legitimacy cannot be conferred by drawing lines on a map; the legacy of the dissection of the Middle East by the great powers informs our politics yet today, and thus the events discussed in this book remain highly relevant and absorbing.
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LibraryThing member JustMe869
I was disappointed in this book. It was much too Euro-centric.
LibraryThing member margaretnic
Others have already said it, but I'll say it again: this is a superb account of the high-handed dealings of the colonial powers, during and just after World War I, which shaped the modern Middle East. Besides being meticulously researched and very well written, the book tells a fascinating story
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which brims with ironies. Fromkin notes that the British asked the Arabs to trust them, yet the British didn't trust the Arabs, nor did they trust the French or the Russians; in fact, individuals at various levels of the British government didn't even trust each other, and often they misunderstood or flat-out didn't know each other's views. At every turn, throughout that period, the British and the French were deceiving each other, individuals within their governments were deceiving other individuals in the same government, and all of them were deceiving themselves. It's hard to keep all the twists and turns straight, but every chapter brings new insights. One finishes the book with sadness at what happened, but with the satisfaction of finally understanding what went wrong--and why the Middle East remains a power keg today. Show Less
LibraryThing member kiparsky
A dense and demanding treatment of the development of the modern middle east states. This is not, despite the subtitle, any kind of history of the fall of the Ottoman empire - the subject hardly comes up, and would have to start in any case long before Fromkin begins. Fromkin's history is instead
Caveat lector: when I say "demanding", I mean that Fromkin presumes a good deal of familiarity with the events of the First World War, as well as an understanding of the diplomatic mindset of the late nineteenth century, a mindset superseded in precisely the period covered here. Failing this, I'm afraid this book will be rather incomprehensible.
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focussed on the English involvement in the region in the years before and after the Great War, with some reference, where necessary, to the French, Russians, and the occasional Arab or American. In other words, it is in no sense a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but with this limitation in mind it is a fertile source of questions for those interested in understanding the origins of the modern Mid-East states. The book also provides, inadvertently, a reminder of the impermanence of history. By this I mean not so much that the facts of history change, although they do as new discoveries are made and new interpretations are accepted, but rather that the salient details change as present-day concerns bring new issues into focus. This book was written in 1989, and it is good entertainment to speculate on how it would have been different if written five, or ten, or fifteen years later. Caveat lector: when I say "demanding", I mean that Fromkin presumes a good deal of familiarity with the events of the First World War, as well as an understanding of the diplomatic mindset of the late nineteenth century, a mindset superseded in precisely the period covered here. Failing this, I'm afraid this book will be rather incomprehensible.
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LibraryThing member kencf0618
If you want to know which Englishman coined the term "Middle East," and how he met his gruesome end in what is now one of the -stans, curl up with this book. As for Iraq, it's deja vu all over again. This book is necessary background for understanding how the cauldron we call "the Middle East" was
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cobbled into existence (mostly by the British and French), Lawrence of Arabia, skullduggery, legitimate national aspirations, Realpolitk and all. Show Less
LibraryThing member patito-de-hule
A few years ago, Osama bin Laden made a remark about 80 years of injustice. What happened 80 years ago? How did the Middle East come to be as it is now? Fromkin tells us an important piece of that story. This is the story of World War I with primary emphasis on the Ottoman Empire and how the Allies
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came to divide up the Middle East. It is a very well written book with clear relevance to our own times. Show Less
LibraryThing member markon
These are comments, not really a review
What I liked about it:
Big picture view of Western European interests that were influential in creating what we call the Middle East out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey/Middle East/Central Asia). Particularly British, as well as (to a lesser
My impressions:
Britain's interests were conflicted – they started out wanting to protect the overland path to the Indian Empire from their rivals in Europe & Russia. However, various parts of the empire (India = Simla, Egyptian protectorate, & various factions in London ) had different points of view at different times. Kitchener/Mark Sykes/ David Lloyd George/Winston Churchill are the names I have retained. Alliances & agreements between the Allies changed also.
Britain supported two sons of Sheriff Hussein of Mecca for “rulership” while France supported the Saud family. It’s no wonder there is conflict, as the form of government the region was accustomed to was destroyed, and there was no clear authoritative form of government or monarch to put in its place.
Britain ended up with the biggest “piece of the pie” – Palestine, “Transjordan” (which was part of Palestine), Egypt, Persia (Iran), Iraq (created out of 3 provinces of the empire); France with Lebanon (which started out as part of Palestine) & the Saudi Peninsula, including Mecca. And Turkey gained independence.
By the time World War I was over & treaties & agreements were concluded, Western European governments didn’t have the will or the funds to maintain a presence to control their client states. And the client states didn’t want to be clients, but independent in their own right.
Fromkin draws a parallel between the time it took for Western European government to develop after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the time it may take for a "secular" form of government to develop in the Middle East. Stilll chewing on this.
What I liked about it:
Big picture view of Western European interests that were influential in creating what we call the Middle East out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey/Middle East/Central Asia). Particularly British, as well as (to a lesser
Show More
extent) France, Russia/USSR.My impressions:
Britain's interests were conflicted – they started out wanting to protect the overland path to the Indian Empire from their rivals in Europe & Russia. However, various parts of the empire (India = Simla, Egyptian protectorate, & various factions in London ) had different points of view at different times. Kitchener/Mark Sykes/ David Lloyd George/Winston Churchill are the names I have retained. Alliances & agreements between the Allies changed also.
Britain supported two sons of Sheriff Hussein of Mecca for “rulership” while France supported the Saud family. It’s no wonder there is conflict, as the form of government the region was accustomed to was destroyed, and there was no clear authoritative form of government or monarch to put in its place.
Britain ended up with the biggest “piece of the pie” – Palestine, “Transjordan” (which was part of Palestine), Egypt, Persia (Iran), Iraq (created out of 3 provinces of the empire); France with Lebanon (which started out as part of Palestine) & the Saudi Peninsula, including Mecca. And Turkey gained independence.
By the time World War I was over & treaties & agreements were concluded, Western European governments didn’t have the will or the funds to maintain a presence to control their client states. And the client states didn’t want to be clients, but independent in their own right.
Fromkin draws a parallel between the time it took for Western European government to develop after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and the time it may take for a "secular" form of government to develop in the Middle East. Stilll chewing on this.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
The Ottoman Empire was destroyed in WWI, and the attempt to create a structure to govern the area, and to reward the victors, is the matter of this book. Mr. Fromkin has done a good job describing the pitfalls that were dug by the arrangement, but the question arises as to how they could have been
The inhabitants had some ideas of their own, drawn from the nationalist nineteenth century model, and attempted to modify the peace plan. The resulting collisions are still vibrating today. This book identifies the major players then and the modern still-operating fault-lines.
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avoided. The Wilsonian plan of setting up a set of nation-states seemed to be the best plan for Europe, but the victorious Allies had plans of compensating themselves from the Ottoman territories that was far more on the eighteenth century model. The inhabitants had some ideas of their own, drawn from the nationalist nineteenth century model, and attempted to modify the peace plan. The resulting collisions are still vibrating today. This book identifies the major players then and the modern still-operating fault-lines.
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LibraryThing member brewergirl
I found this book very helpful in understanding the history of the Middle East. I certainly can't claim to be an expert, but my fuzzy comprehension of history and geography was brought more into focus.
LibraryThing member ts.
The last 2 chapters were disappointing.
In the last one he makes a quick 10 page conclusion of everything that I thought was just poor;
I have a feeling he had a deadline to meet and those last 10 pages he regurgitated the night before it was due.
All in all,
it was interesting, but very, very dense. I
I would say that I know more now on the history than I did before, but there was such a huge mass of information that you really need to stick to this book and not stop for too long or you'll just forget everything.
Despite the poor conclusion, he did say something interesting there:
Basically he said that the current system was never meant for Arabia.
The Europeans had concurred the world, and the last place to concur was the Middle East.
They had concurred America, north and south,
Australia, New Zealand, east Asia, Africa...
Everything was colonized by them.
They believed in this secular nation-state, which worked in Europe, but had never been introduced to the Middle East.
First Islam conquered the whole area, and
then the ottomans took over for 700 years.
Also, the fact that all the leaders were put in place by the English and French meant that the local people had no faith in their politicians, and didn't understand their borders.
For example, the Saudi-Jordanian border is the site of where Ibn Saud tried to invade what is now Jordan,
but Jordan had king Abdullah, put in place by the English, so the English sent airplanes and tanks and armored vehicles and massacred Ibn Saud's bedouins.
They did this to save face. They could not have their puppet being killed or crushed. It would simply make the Brits look weak.
The site of that battle became the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia:
hence the names, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Basically 2 local dynastic tribal leaders tried to adapt to this European idea of nation-states and took their areas of control and turned them into countries.
So basically what I think he was trying to say in his conclusion was that that form of government was never meant for the Middle East and won't last long.
He was saying that the Europeans underestimated the only unifying factor in Arabia, which was Islam.
They would never have believed that a bunch of wahhabi bedouins could invade the hejaz, or that the muslim brotherhood would be so strong today, or the Afghani mujahedeen, or the shia revolution in Iran...
He also said that it was like Europe in the 5th century
the roman empire crumbled and then Europe spent 1000 years warring against each other trying to find a comfortable solution, and it evolved this idea of secular nation states.
Anyway, I came off with the feeling that the English and the French screwed up everything, and have the blood of millions of deaths on their hands, and that the countries that exist today are sad jokes.
The whole area was part of Greater
Syria for 2 weeks. All the Arabs there united under 1 government right in between Egypt and Iran.
And I think that's how it should end one day.
So to summarize:
Pros:
Good book.
Dense
Well researched
Cons:
As one reviewer mentioned, too euro-centric for a book about the Middle-East.
The part on Ibn Saud taking the Hejaz and naming himself king, for example, was about 2 pages long!
Also, he seems to quickly mention things that were of utmost importance, such as Ibn Saud collecting vast amounts of money from the British. He does not connect the dots here, because what this means is that Ibn Saud would have had little money to pay his troops and to buy weapons if the British had not payed him off as handsomely as they did, and hence, the world would not know a Wahhabi Saudi Kingdom in control of Islam's two holiest cities. And that, is something worth a chapter or two.
In the last one he makes a quick 10 page conclusion of everything that I thought was just poor;
I have a feeling he had a deadline to meet and those last 10 pages he regurgitated the night before it was due.
All in all,
it was interesting, but very, very dense. I
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would say university history class level.I would say that I know more now on the history than I did before, but there was such a huge mass of information that you really need to stick to this book and not stop for too long or you'll just forget everything.
Despite the poor conclusion, he did say something interesting there:
Basically he said that the current system was never meant for Arabia.
The Europeans had concurred the world, and the last place to concur was the Middle East.
They had concurred America, north and south,
Australia, New Zealand, east Asia, Africa...
Everything was colonized by them.
They believed in this secular nation-state, which worked in Europe, but had never been introduced to the Middle East.
First Islam conquered the whole area, and
then the ottomans took over for 700 years.
Also, the fact that all the leaders were put in place by the English and French meant that the local people had no faith in their politicians, and didn't understand their borders.
For example, the Saudi-Jordanian border is the site of where Ibn Saud tried to invade what is now Jordan,
but Jordan had king Abdullah, put in place by the English, so the English sent airplanes and tanks and armored vehicles and massacred Ibn Saud's bedouins.
They did this to save face. They could not have their puppet being killed or crushed. It would simply make the Brits look weak.
The site of that battle became the border of Jordan and Saudi Arabia:
hence the names, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Basically 2 local dynastic tribal leaders tried to adapt to this European idea of nation-states and took their areas of control and turned them into countries.
So basically what I think he was trying to say in his conclusion was that that form of government was never meant for the Middle East and won't last long.
He was saying that the Europeans underestimated the only unifying factor in Arabia, which was Islam.
They would never have believed that a bunch of wahhabi bedouins could invade the hejaz, or that the muslim brotherhood would be so strong today, or the Afghani mujahedeen, or the shia revolution in Iran...
He also said that it was like Europe in the 5th century
the roman empire crumbled and then Europe spent 1000 years warring against each other trying to find a comfortable solution, and it evolved this idea of secular nation states.
Anyway, I came off with the feeling that the English and the French screwed up everything, and have the blood of millions of deaths on their hands, and that the countries that exist today are sad jokes.
The whole area was part of Greater
Syria for 2 weeks. All the Arabs there united under 1 government right in between Egypt and Iran.
And I think that's how it should end one day.
So to summarize:
Pros:
Good book.
Dense
Well researched
Cons:
As one reviewer mentioned, too euro-centric for a book about the Middle-East.
The part on Ibn Saud taking the Hejaz and naming himself king, for example, was about 2 pages long!
Also, he seems to quickly mention things that were of utmost importance, such as Ibn Saud collecting vast amounts of money from the British. He does not connect the dots here, because what this means is that Ibn Saud would have had little money to pay his troops and to buy weapons if the British had not payed him off as handsomely as they did, and hence, the world would not know a Wahhabi Saudi Kingdom in control of Islam's two holiest cities. And that, is something worth a chapter or two.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bobshackleton
Fascinating, short but comprehensive review of the sequence of events that led to the creation by the Allied powers of the modern Middle Eastern nations out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire.
LibraryThing member ke-cin
What I enjoyed about this book besides the content is that the writing (for non-fiction history) is not pedantic. It is very readable without sacrificing the quality of the research.
LibraryThing member Hae-Yu
This is the single best book to understanding the background to the modern Middle East regarding Israel and Palestine. I have found it referenced in pro-Israeli, anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-Arab histories and polemics. If there is a book on the Middle East written since 2001, this book
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is likely in it's bibliography. Show Less
LibraryThing member Othemts
In the wake of the First World War, Western governments divvy up the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire and adjacent territories. They create new nations (sometimes with no real cultural or historical basis) and pit inhabitants against one another. The results of the political maneuvering 80 years ago
This book is a valuable and comprehensive, but readable, history of how things went south in the Middle East.
Favorite Passages
“In their passion for booty, the Allied governments lost sight of the condition upon which future gains were predicated: winning the war. Blinded by the prize, they did not see that there was a contest.” (p. 215)
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are still seen in the violence and instability of the modern Middle East.This book is a valuable and comprehensive, but readable, history of how things went south in the Middle East.
Favorite Passages
“In their passion for booty, the Allied governments lost sight of the condition upon which future gains were predicated: winning the war. Blinded by the prize, they did not see that there was a contest.” (p. 215)
Show Less
LibraryThing member thcson
This book describes the dissolution of the Ottoman empire in and after the first world war with a verystrong emphasis on British politics. It is, in fact, misleading to call this a "definitive account" of the creation of the modern Middle East, as the back cover does. It can hardly be very
Nevertheless, it was certainly interesting to compare the imperial world-views of British leaders before the war to the humbled perspective they were forced to adopt after the war. It's hard to believe that a century ago leaders could still understand politics only from the narrow conceptions of colonial empire: a zero-sum game focused only on territorial possession. The Ottoman empire was weak, so the British and the French thought it should be divided betwen British and France, even though they had no knowledge of the lands they wanted to divide. The contrast with the post-war worldview is quite striking, as the author also points out. In that sense it certainly seems to be true that this book describes a watershed moment.
The second half of the book, which describes events after the war, is more interesting than the first. British leaders eventually had to face the limits of their own power. They were instrumental in founding the countries of the Middle East in the settlement of 1922, before leaving the region for good. But the age of empires was coming to an end and the age of national self-determination was about to begin. It is a bit peculiar that Woodrow Wilson, who certainly did much more than any British politician to inaugurate this new age, is in this book written off as a naive buffoon who didn't have any idea what he was doing at the peace conference which ended the war. In conclusion, I think this book is too long and it's perspective is centered far too much on Britain. Nevertheless, it has its moments, and there may not be any other book which tells the same story in this much detail.
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definitive when the Turkish, Arab, Persian, German, Russian, French and American sides of the story, all taken together, receive less than half as much as space as the British story does. There's no doubt that Britain was the leading political power in the world before, but especially in the beginning of the book the author drags into the narrative far too many unimportant British persons whose views didn't have any consequences worthy of mention and weren't particularly interesting to begin with. I skipped quite many sections of the book just out of boredom. Nevertheless, it was certainly interesting to compare the imperial world-views of British leaders before the war to the humbled perspective they were forced to adopt after the war. It's hard to believe that a century ago leaders could still understand politics only from the narrow conceptions of colonial empire: a zero-sum game focused only on territorial possession. The Ottoman empire was weak, so the British and the French thought it should be divided betwen British and France, even though they had no knowledge of the lands they wanted to divide. The contrast with the post-war worldview is quite striking, as the author also points out. In that sense it certainly seems to be true that this book describes a watershed moment.
The second half of the book, which describes events after the war, is more interesting than the first. British leaders eventually had to face the limits of their own power. They were instrumental in founding the countries of the Middle East in the settlement of 1922, before leaving the region for good. But the age of empires was coming to an end and the age of national self-determination was about to begin. It is a bit peculiar that Woodrow Wilson, who certainly did much more than any British politician to inaugurate this new age, is in this book written off as a naive buffoon who didn't have any idea what he was doing at the peace conference which ended the war. In conclusion, I think this book is too long and it's perspective is centered far too much on Britain. Nevertheless, it has its moments, and there may not be any other book which tells the same story in this much detail.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Pulitzer Prize (Finalist — General Non-Fiction — 1990)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — General Nonfiction — 1989)
Language
Original publication date
1989
Physical description
xi, 643 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
9780805088090
Local notes
959, FRO