A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin
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(Paperback - REV)
- Pub. Date: October 2001
- 636pp
- Sales Rank: 15,599
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: October 2001
- Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated
- Format: Paperback, 636pp
- Sales Rank: 15,599
- ISBN-13: 9780805068849
- ISBN: 0805068848
- Edition Description: REV
Synopsis
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 us.
Annotation
This covers the creation of the modern Middle East from 1914 to 1922.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
David Fromkin is a professor at Boston University and the author of several acclaimed books of nonfiction, including The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners. He lives in New York City.
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There is no other book that explains the arbitrary allocation of nationalities in the middle east anby vagaku
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November 12, 2009: I read this book again before a recent trip to Turkey and Greece. In a few hundred pages this book is packed with valuable information that can give us insights into the incorrigible disputes in the middle east and the Muslim world in general. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of our elected representatives who are making important decisions affecting these areas are clueless about how artificial the boundaries of these countries are and how our well intentioned solutions to their problems are bound to fail. It is a must read for anyone interested in how our foreign policy in the next few years might impact the geopolitical equation for many years to come.
Tortuous Destiny of Middle Eastern Tapestryby Anonymous
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February 28, 2005: David Fromkin gives his readers a sweeping account of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the contemporary Middle East, defined as Egypt, Israel, Iran, Turkey, the Arab states of Asia, Central Asia and Afghanistan (pg. 16). Fromkin mainly focuses on the decision-making process of Europeans and Americans who, between 1914 and 1922, determined the fate of the region without any input of its inhabitants (pg. 17, 400). The area that the much-diminished, anachronistic Ottoman Empire occupied in 1914 was one of the few territories that the European empires had not yet shared among themselves (pg. 24, 32). The European powers did not wait for the fall of the Ottomans before arguing about their respective zones of influence in the region after the war. Statesmen such as Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Kitchener, T.E. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin played leading roles in re-shaping the region. Winston Churchill - at times unintentionally - had the most enduring impact on its cartography (pg. 19, 25, 73, 385-388, 493-529, 558-567). After losing the patronage of Britain against Russia, the weakened Ottoman Empire, anxious to pursue its modernization while living in fear of Western powers' designs, convinced Germany to become its partner in 1914 (pg. 33-50, 75, 142). Fromkin convincingly demonstrates that Churchill was not to blame for pushing Turkey into the arms of Germany (pg. 54-76). Britain and allied powers believed that the Ottoman war would be a sideshow that could be easily managed (pg. 83, 115, 119-123) but they were repeatedly proven wrong (pg. 200-203, 215, 248, 289, 301). The poorly executed attack on Turkey at the Dardanelles could have considerably shortened the duration of the war (pg. 127, 264). Churchill was the scapegoat for the fiasco and was demoted within the government (pg. 128, 154, 159, 161-162, 233). After resigning and spending a few months in the wilderness, Churchill, who was perceived as dangerous across the board, was brought back to the government at the insistence of Lloyd George, the new British Prime Minister (pg. 166, 234, 265-266). Kitchener and his Lieutenants acting on his behalf in British Cairo imposed their design on government's policy towards the Middle East at the expense of the India Office (pg. 88-95, 106-110). Britain would rule the region indirectly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire (pg. 85). Like the French, Kitchener and his men wrongly assumed that the Moslem Middle East would be glad to be ruled by Christians (pg. 93-94, 102, 106). The British looked at Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca and its Emir, as the ideal candidate for the position of 'Pope' of Islam (pg. 105). The British leadership wrongly believed that Islam was a single entity and that temporal and spiritual authority could be easily split (pg. 96, 104). The Arabs misled the Allies about their true strength to fight the Ottoman Empire. This cost Britain dearly because their core competency was only guerilla warfare against the Turks, until the capture of Jerusalem (pg. 186-187, 219-222, 309, 313, 377-378, 396). Over time, the British became disillusioned with Hussein. However, they supported two of his sons in the fulfillment of their ambitions (pg. 326-329, 506-512). Britain entered into negotiations with France, Russia, and later Italy that ultimately resulted in the cursed Sykes-Picot-Sazanov agreement and other secret treaty understandings to share the spoils of victory in...
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