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elanorh's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
5.0
This book took me a very long time to read. It shouldn't have taken so long. The chapters are short; reading a chapter/night would get a person through the book relatively quickly. However, I would set it aside and read something else, and then return to it. Thus my very delayed completion of the book.
That said, I do highly recommend it. The book was published in the '80's so much has changed in the world since then - but it's a book about the historical origins of the absolute cluster which we have in the Middle East today, and it is very informative and helpful for anyone who wishes to understand that situation and the origins of the problems which were escalated/created at what point the European powers began interfering in a region they didn't understand.
Much of what we know/assume about the Middle East is poorly informed or incorrect. This book helps with that. Read it to understand your world.
That said, I do highly recommend it. The book was published in the '80's so much has changed in the world since then - but it's a book about the historical origins of the absolute cluster which we have in the Middle East today, and it is very informative and helpful for anyone who wishes to understand that situation and the origins of the problems which were escalated/created at what point the European powers began interfering in a region they didn't understand.
Much of what we know/assume about the Middle East is poorly informed or incorrect. This book helps with that. Read it to understand your world.
dimitribelgium's review against another edition
3.0
The first two-thirds of the book necessarily deals with diplomacy during the war. "Broken promises" is a central theme in the post-war new order in the Middle East. Fresh off reading Ulrichsen, I could hurry this part. The final 200 pages look at the emergence of each new country up to the general Middle East settlement of 1922.
Did Fromkin, not a historian by trade, rely too much on official sources? How relevant is this book to understand the modern Middle East ? I only qualify to offer an opinion on the second question.
The book is unquestionably relevant, especially in understanding the roots of the Israeli conflict, but the cutoff date leaves me in 2014 with an incomplete picture of Iraq & Syria. The new afterword to the 2009 edition is an equal tease, dating back to just before the outbreak of the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war.
Still, it was convenient to have this book republished just when we were again forced to ask ourselves "Why do some people in the Middle East keep telling us that it's our own fault for what we did a good century ago?". Nation-building in the former lands of Mesopotamia certainly has not gotten easier, so in yet another 100 years we might face blame akin to the French & British policy makers. In the spirit of the time, open and total colonial mastery mastery was acceptable, in spite of the wartime moral defence of the rights of small nations such as Belgium. However, imperial exhaustion and technological limitations made this unsupportable in the long run. Today, we find ourselves with opposite obstacles.
Did Fromkin, not a historian by trade, rely too much on official sources? How relevant is this book to understand the modern Middle East ? I only qualify to offer an opinion on the second question.
The book is unquestionably relevant, especially in understanding the roots of the Israeli conflict, but the cutoff date leaves me in 2014 with an incomplete picture of Iraq & Syria. The new afterword to the 2009 edition is an equal tease, dating back to just before the outbreak of the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war.
Still, it was convenient to have this book republished just when we were again forced to ask ourselves "Why do some people in the Middle East keep telling us that it's our own fault for what we did a good century ago?". Nation-building in the former lands of Mesopotamia certainly has not gotten easier, so in yet another 100 years we might face blame akin to the French & British policy makers. In the spirit of the time, open and total colonial mastery mastery was acceptable, in spite of the wartime moral defence of the rights of small nations such as Belgium. However, imperial exhaustion and technological limitations made this unsupportable in the long run. Today, we find ourselves with opposite obstacles.
wpboger's review
4.0
I don't understand history, or geography, well enough to truly appreciate Fromkin's research and conclusions, but I'm glad that I stuck with it. Novices, like me, will need either an atlas, the Wikipedia, or both. More than anything, I have a deeper appreciation of Winston Churchill, an even deeper disdain for bureaucracy, and a renewed need to visit Turkey and the Middle East someday. A great book, but a tough read.
wyntrchylde's review
5.0
A Peace to End All Peace
Author: David Fromkin
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Published In: New York City
Date: 1989
Pgs: 635
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
The Middle East, long a battleground of religions, ideologies, nationalism, and dynasty, her history comes alive here. This history concerns itself with the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and how it arrived at that point. How the secret agreements of the WW1 Allies impacted the peoples and the future of the region. The reasons, ambitions, and greed that drove the Allies to make the decisions that they made. And their ultimate failure to understand what they were dealing with in the peoples of the Middle East. The same mistake made today by policymakers in seeing the world of the Middle East as a single mass instead of the polyglot of ethnicities that exists there. This is a Middle East before the Petroleum Age. A time when allegiance was still possible between Arab and Zionism. A time before the founding of Israel. A time before the arbitrary drawing of lines on a map and lumping ethnicities together whose only history together was enmity and a share of the Ottoman yoke. This book follows the narrowing of paths and circumstances that lead the region toward the endless wars and escalating acts of terrorism that continue to plague the region to this day.
Genre:
History
Military
Non-fiction
Why this book:
Always been fascinated by the Ottoman Empire and the Arab world.
______________________________________________________________________________
Pacing:
The telling of Ottoman and Middle East history is well paced.
Hmm Moments:
The man who coined the term The Great Game in Asia to explain the competition between England and Russia for dominance and hegemony in Asia ended up beheaded by an Uzbek emir.
I had read the stories about the veneer that was Ottoman control of their empire; dominated by outside powers, Britain, Russia, Germany; barely ruling their subjects to the degree that estimates say the government only collected 5% of their taxes some years, the remainder collected by “tax farmers”. Effective national leadership elluded the Turks at the center of the Ottoman Empire. Reading the makeup of the Empire makes me wonder what could have been if they had hit upon a federal system that gave power to the ethnic minorities and the regions in a national assembly. What would the modern Middle East look like today? Would Europe have let that flower flourish or would they have yanked it out by its root and then split it up any which way they wanted to as they did in our world. In some cases putting tribes and ethnicities under a single national tent that were immemorial enemies. There was a Turkish Parliament, but it was disbanded by the Sultan Abdul Hamid during his reign(1876-1909). The Parliament’s makeup did not reflect the rank and file of Ottoman life.
The Anti-Semitism of the British embassy and it’s colorful reports to London impacted the British attitudes and actions in the Ottoman Empire for many years to come. Instead of seeing the rise of the Young Turks in the light of enlightenment, they saw it instead cloaked in Jewish adventurism, Latin intrigue, French fervor, and the conspiracy of the freemasons.
And when the Young Turks took control, Britain replaced its ambassador. Although this time instead of being fed a diet of Anti-Semitism, they were given rosey reports full of optimism that was misleading as well. The British Foreign Office was fed on the propagandic beliefs of their men on the spot time and again.
The Young Turks threw away their chance for true federalism by excluding all non-Turks and only allowing a fraction of the Parliament seats to be filled by Arabs. Of the 22 recognized ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire, only Turks and Arabs held seats; 150 seats were held by Turks, 60 by Arabs. None of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire identified as Ottoman, an opportunity that the Young Turks blew when they moved to insure the dominance of the Turks within the government. The text also refers to Turkey as not being the homeland of the Turks. Turkestan in the steppes of Central Asia being divided between Russia and China, giving both of them a claim to the leadership of all Turkish speaking peoples, of whom many weren’t of Turkish origin.
Churchill being described as “just losing the adolescence from his face” at the age of thirty-nine when he sought to transition from Home Secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty. Perfect example of the Harumphers holding onto power as the generational change comes to politics, a changing of the guard moment in politics that hits all systems eventually.
Where Woodrow Wilson high ideals clashed with the political realities in Europe, Asia, and America, he doesn’t come off looking so well. He was a President with razor thin margins allowing him to govern on sufferance by his enemies and occasional “friends”. He made America party to the Allies with the public proviso that there would be no secret quid pro quo on the postwar distribution of the spoils, even though he knew such agreements existed. The fall of Russia to the Communists lead to those secret agreements being disgorged into the press. He is attributed an off-the-record quote while aboard ship on his way to the World War One peace conference in 1919: “I am convinced that if this peace is not made on the highest principles of justice, it will b swept away by the peoples of the world in less than a generation. If it is any other sort of peace then I shall want to run away and hide...for there will follow not mere conflict but cataclysm.” Despite his prescience here, he failed to gather a working group to help plan the American stance on the post-war world that had any “real” connection to the world. He filled The Inquiry Group with academicians and a lot of brother-in-law syndrome as opposed to real world strategists with on-the-ground knowledge of what they were dealing with when looking at the Middle East and the actual circumstances within the Ottoman Empire that they were suggesting the dissolution and dismemberment of. This left America and the President with a program that was vague and bound to arouse millennial expectations which once in the hands of politicians would make it virtually certain to disappoint.
I had always accepted the history book version of the American Congress being the rock on which Wilson’s Fourteen Points foundered. Reading this book and seeing the plethora of behind the back, secret agreements that Britain made, sometimes contradictory, with enemies and allies makes one see that the political Britain of that era wasn’t trustworthy in the least sense. She was very much in the business of empire while espousing freedom as a balm for the sting of protectoratism and/or outright domination. They spent much of that era making secret diplomatic agreements and then throwing them away as circumstances showed them a more advantageous prospect.
Fromkin’s characterization of Woodrow Wilson makes me wonder if the President was so naive as to let himself be lead around by the nose by Lloyd George or if he was playing the “aw shucks, I’m just an American in Paris” to give him the position to negotiate the best treaty that he could in the areas of most interest to him. I believe that Wilson wanted this to have been the last war, the last meatgrinder that America ever had to feed her children to for the rest of the world’s peace. I wonder at how sad he would be today that his efforts came to so little when you look at the bloodshed of the 20th century and the way we have kicked off the 21st.
The Domino Theory existed long before it appeared in American foreign policy. The theory was put forth by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon as early as 1919 though still about the Bolsheviks. The British in the immediate post World War era in the Middle East were facing a number of revolts and revolutions in both their recently acquired possessions and those of long standing: troubles were arousing in Egypt, Afghanistan, Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Some maybe, possibly could be lain at the feet of the Soviets, but a healthy bit of it is the fault of the British for failing to understand the situation on the ground in each of those countries and provinces, up to and including the British departments of government working at odds with each other, ie: like they did in Arabia where one department was supporting Hussein in the Hejaz with money and material while another was supporting Ibn Saud with same.
The revolts across Central Asia lead to an Emir retaking his family’s traditional power and position. He brought back the Dark Ages in a big way. He reopened a 12th century tower, the Kalyan Minaret, which was the Tower of Death. Condemned criminals were tossed from teh top of the tower to their deaths, though law and order and the way the government was run under him was at his decree. When faced with a choice between that, the Red Army, or Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Young Turk exile, who had been sent there by Russia to quell and pacify the locals ahead of the Red Army, but went over to the Emir to “help” him unify the Turks and throw off the yoke of the Russians. Pasha was only interested in his own power however and ended up drawing more and more power to himself before he found himself at odds with both the Emir and the Russians.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
The fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Turkey; The rise, fall, rise, fall, and rise of Winston Churchill; From lines on a map to nationalism in the Middle East. Good stuff.
Author Assessment:
Absolutely read more by this author.
Editorial Assessment:
Was some repetitiveness chapter to chapter, but overall great stuff.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic
Dewey Decimal System:
327.41056
FROMKIN
Would recommend to:
genre fans
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
Author: David Fromkin
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Published In: New York City
Date: 1989
Pgs: 635
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
The Middle East, long a battleground of religions, ideologies, nationalism, and dynasty, her history comes alive here. This history concerns itself with the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and how it arrived at that point. How the secret agreements of the WW1 Allies impacted the peoples and the future of the region. The reasons, ambitions, and greed that drove the Allies to make the decisions that they made. And their ultimate failure to understand what they were dealing with in the peoples of the Middle East. The same mistake made today by policymakers in seeing the world of the Middle East as a single mass instead of the polyglot of ethnicities that exists there. This is a Middle East before the Petroleum Age. A time when allegiance was still possible between Arab and Zionism. A time before the founding of Israel. A time before the arbitrary drawing of lines on a map and lumping ethnicities together whose only history together was enmity and a share of the Ottoman yoke. This book follows the narrowing of paths and circumstances that lead the region toward the endless wars and escalating acts of terrorism that continue to plague the region to this day.
Genre:
History
Military
Non-fiction
Why this book:
Always been fascinated by the Ottoman Empire and the Arab world.
______________________________________________________________________________
Pacing:
The telling of Ottoman and Middle East history is well paced.
Hmm Moments:
The man who coined the term The Great Game in Asia to explain the competition between England and Russia for dominance and hegemony in Asia ended up beheaded by an Uzbek emir.
I had read the stories about the veneer that was Ottoman control of their empire; dominated by outside powers, Britain, Russia, Germany; barely ruling their subjects to the degree that estimates say the government only collected 5% of their taxes some years, the remainder collected by “tax farmers”. Effective national leadership elluded the Turks at the center of the Ottoman Empire. Reading the makeup of the Empire makes me wonder what could have been if they had hit upon a federal system that gave power to the ethnic minorities and the regions in a national assembly. What would the modern Middle East look like today? Would Europe have let that flower flourish or would they have yanked it out by its root and then split it up any which way they wanted to as they did in our world. In some cases putting tribes and ethnicities under a single national tent that were immemorial enemies. There was a Turkish Parliament, but it was disbanded by the Sultan Abdul Hamid during his reign(1876-1909). The Parliament’s makeup did not reflect the rank and file of Ottoman life.
The Anti-Semitism of the British embassy and it’s colorful reports to London impacted the British attitudes and actions in the Ottoman Empire for many years to come. Instead of seeing the rise of the Young Turks in the light of enlightenment, they saw it instead cloaked in Jewish adventurism, Latin intrigue, French fervor, and the conspiracy of the freemasons.
And when the Young Turks took control, Britain replaced its ambassador. Although this time instead of being fed a diet of Anti-Semitism, they were given rosey reports full of optimism that was misleading as well. The British Foreign Office was fed on the propagandic beliefs of their men on the spot time and again.
The Young Turks threw away their chance for true federalism by excluding all non-Turks and only allowing a fraction of the Parliament seats to be filled by Arabs. Of the 22 recognized ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire, only Turks and Arabs held seats; 150 seats were held by Turks, 60 by Arabs. None of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire identified as Ottoman, an opportunity that the Young Turks blew when they moved to insure the dominance of the Turks within the government. The text also refers to Turkey as not being the homeland of the Turks. Turkestan in the steppes of Central Asia being divided between Russia and China, giving both of them a claim to the leadership of all Turkish speaking peoples, of whom many weren’t of Turkish origin.
Churchill being described as “just losing the adolescence from his face” at the age of thirty-nine when he sought to transition from Home Secretary to First Lord of the Admiralty. Perfect example of the Harumphers holding onto power as the generational change comes to politics, a changing of the guard moment in politics that hits all systems eventually.
Where Woodrow Wilson high ideals clashed with the political realities in Europe, Asia, and America, he doesn’t come off looking so well. He was a President with razor thin margins allowing him to govern on sufferance by his enemies and occasional “friends”. He made America party to the Allies with the public proviso that there would be no secret quid pro quo on the postwar distribution of the spoils, even though he knew such agreements existed. The fall of Russia to the Communists lead to those secret agreements being disgorged into the press. He is attributed an off-the-record quote while aboard ship on his way to the World War One peace conference in 1919: “I am convinced that if this peace is not made on the highest principles of justice, it will b swept away by the peoples of the world in less than a generation. If it is any other sort of peace then I shall want to run away and hide...for there will follow not mere conflict but cataclysm.” Despite his prescience here, he failed to gather a working group to help plan the American stance on the post-war world that had any “real” connection to the world. He filled The Inquiry Group with academicians and a lot of brother-in-law syndrome as opposed to real world strategists with on-the-ground knowledge of what they were dealing with when looking at the Middle East and the actual circumstances within the Ottoman Empire that they were suggesting the dissolution and dismemberment of. This left America and the President with a program that was vague and bound to arouse millennial expectations which once in the hands of politicians would make it virtually certain to disappoint.
I had always accepted the history book version of the American Congress being the rock on which Wilson’s Fourteen Points foundered. Reading this book and seeing the plethora of behind the back, secret agreements that Britain made, sometimes contradictory, with enemies and allies makes one see that the political Britain of that era wasn’t trustworthy in the least sense. She was very much in the business of empire while espousing freedom as a balm for the sting of protectoratism and/or outright domination. They spent much of that era making secret diplomatic agreements and then throwing them away as circumstances showed them a more advantageous prospect.
Fromkin’s characterization of Woodrow Wilson makes me wonder if the President was so naive as to let himself be lead around by the nose by Lloyd George or if he was playing the “aw shucks, I’m just an American in Paris” to give him the position to negotiate the best treaty that he could in the areas of most interest to him. I believe that Wilson wanted this to have been the last war, the last meatgrinder that America ever had to feed her children to for the rest of the world’s peace. I wonder at how sad he would be today that his efforts came to so little when you look at the bloodshed of the 20th century and the way we have kicked off the 21st.
The Domino Theory existed long before it appeared in American foreign policy. The theory was put forth by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon as early as 1919 though still about the Bolsheviks. The British in the immediate post World War era in the Middle East were facing a number of revolts and revolutions in both their recently acquired possessions and those of long standing: troubles were arousing in Egypt, Afghanistan, Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Persia. Some maybe, possibly could be lain at the feet of the Soviets, but a healthy bit of it is the fault of the British for failing to understand the situation on the ground in each of those countries and provinces, up to and including the British departments of government working at odds with each other, ie: like they did in Arabia where one department was supporting Hussein in the Hejaz with money and material while another was supporting Ibn Saud with same.
The revolts across Central Asia lead to an Emir retaking his family’s traditional power and position. He brought back the Dark Ages in a big way. He reopened a 12th century tower, the Kalyan Minaret, which was the Tower of Death. Condemned criminals were tossed from teh top of the tower to their deaths, though law and order and the way the government was run under him was at his decree. When faced with a choice between that, the Red Army, or Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Young Turk exile, who had been sent there by Russia to quell and pacify the locals ahead of the Red Army, but went over to the Emir to “help” him unify the Turks and throw off the yoke of the Russians. Pasha was only interested in his own power however and ended up drawing more and more power to himself before he found himself at odds with both the Emir and the Russians.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
The fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Turkey; The rise, fall, rise, fall, and rise of Winston Churchill; From lines on a map to nationalism in the Middle East. Good stuff.
Author Assessment:
Absolutely read more by this author.
Editorial Assessment:
Was some repetitiveness chapter to chapter, but overall great stuff.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
instant classic
Dewey Decimal System:
327.41056
FROMKIN
Would recommend to:
genre fans
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
asquaredgray's review against another edition
5.0
I had a false start with this book, as it is dense and it took some work to keep track of the details (history is complex!). That said, it is essential reading for anyone who wants a foundation to understand modern Middle East politics and conflicts. Highly recommended.
donnawr1's review
5.0
An excellent book that helps us understand the politics in the Middle East. Once again, Imperialism created the seeds of much future discontent.