Scan barcode
A review by retric
A History of the Modern Middle East by William L. Cleveland
5.0
A great read for anyone wanting a relatively comprehensive overview of the region, if not lacking a little in the descriptive details. Note that this is a history textbook and so will come across as a bit drier compared to other nonfiction books, but for an introductory classical historical treatment of the Middle East from early Islam to the present day (up to the 2011 Arab Spring in the most recent edition), I'm guessing it won't get much better than this. That said, I hear Gelvin is recommended if you're looking for something more concise and to the point on how to actually approach this subject on the other hand.
The perspective of the narrative here is primarily told from the viewpoints of the governments of the Middle Eastern nations themselves over the Western ones, although there's naturally plenty of coverage of the latter anyway. Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians take the spotlight with occasional digressions to the north African nations and the Gulf States. Emphasis on the modern in that maybe 80% of the book is concerned with developments of the 20th/early 21st century, with the centuries before that point mostly summarized to provide context for everything else.
Given the vast scope of material to be covered in several hundred pages, a lot of events are mentioned in passing only to point out how they fit into the bigger picture, so I found myself wiki-ing a lot of incidents out of curiosity anyway when the details were scarce. As far as the big picture goes, Cleveland (and Bunton who took this up after Cleveland died in 2006) does a good job of pointing out trends and analyzing causes and effects from as wide and as neutral a perspective you can probably get, even regarding the most recent events. The Western perspective is also addressed (there's a whole chapter on America's role in establishing hegemony in the region post-Cold War era), but only insofar as to convey the significant impact that Western views have had on the region, given their frequent tendency to ignore the historical and present context when dealing with it.
Reading this made me appreciate the fact that a lot of the issues that plague the Middle East to this day are fundamentally ingrained in its geopolitical history: from the arbitrary forced formation of nation-states post World War I, to the frequent outsider intervention of Britain, France, the Soviets, and the US, to the unique natural (oil-rich) and political environment of the nation-states themselves, allowing authoritarian governments to prosper and persist at the expense of their people, while hindering the development of any viable movements that might actually be able to replace them and last. Islam is only one part of a bigger picture, and to focus primarily on the religious aspect of things, for good or bad, is to ignore the fact that there are other primary and often material causes involved that would encourage the people of the Middle East to turn to Islamist movements in the first place; many of these causes are problems that have no easy or simple solutions to begin with. It's difficult to expect any government to be able to satisfy the demands of a population that is ideologically at odds with itself or impose reforms via a political system fundamentally designed to discourage such developments.
Oddly enough, as the book points out, there's even an example of a secular state turning more religious (Turkey) and a religious state turning more secular (Iran) within the same timespan, both because of the population growing dissatisfied with the way their regimes were dealing with their issues... and in other words, life is complicated.
The perspective of the narrative here is primarily told from the viewpoints of the governments of the Middle Eastern nations themselves over the Western ones, although there's naturally plenty of coverage of the latter anyway. Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians take the spotlight with occasional digressions to the north African nations and the Gulf States. Emphasis on the modern in that maybe 80% of the book is concerned with developments of the 20th/early 21st century, with the centuries before that point mostly summarized to provide context for everything else.
Given the vast scope of material to be covered in several hundred pages, a lot of events are mentioned in passing only to point out how they fit into the bigger picture, so I found myself wiki-ing a lot of incidents out of curiosity anyway when the details were scarce. As far as the big picture goes, Cleveland (and Bunton who took this up after Cleveland died in 2006) does a good job of pointing out trends and analyzing causes and effects from as wide and as neutral a perspective you can probably get, even regarding the most recent events. The Western perspective is also addressed (there's a whole chapter on America's role in establishing hegemony in the region post-Cold War era), but only insofar as to convey the significant impact that Western views have had on the region, given their frequent tendency to ignore the historical and present context when dealing with it.
Reading this made me appreciate the fact that a lot of the issues that plague the Middle East to this day are fundamentally ingrained in its geopolitical history: from the arbitrary forced formation of nation-states post World War I, to the frequent outsider intervention of Britain, France, the Soviets, and the US, to the unique natural (oil-rich) and political environment of the nation-states themselves, allowing authoritarian governments to prosper and persist at the expense of their people, while hindering the development of any viable movements that might actually be able to replace them and last. Islam is only one part of a bigger picture, and to focus primarily on the religious aspect of things, for good or bad, is to ignore the fact that there are other primary and often material causes involved that would encourage the people of the Middle East to turn to Islamist movements in the first place; many of these causes are problems that have no easy or simple solutions to begin with. It's difficult to expect any government to be able to satisfy the demands of a population that is ideologically at odds with itself or impose reforms via a political system fundamentally designed to discourage such developments.
Oddly enough, as the book points out, there's even an example of a secular state turning more religious (Turkey) and a religious state turning more secular (Iran) within the same timespan, both because of the population growing dissatisfied with the way their regimes were dealing with their issues... and in other words, life is complicated.