Making the Modern Middle East : Second Edition

A century ago, as World War I got underway, the Middle East was dominated, as it had been for centuries, by the Ottoman Empire. But by 1923, its political shape had changed beyond recognition, as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the insistent claims of Arab and Turkish nationalism and Zionism led to a redrawing of borders and shuffling of alliances—a transformation whose consequences are still felt today.

This fully revised and updated second edition of Making the Modern Middle East traces those changes and the ensuing history of the region through the rest of the twentieth century and on to the present. Focusing in particular on three leaders—Emir Feisal, Mustafa Kemal, and Chaim Weizmann—the book offers a clear, authoritative account of the region seen from a transnational perspective, one that enables readers to understand its complex history and the way it affects present-day events.

T. G. Fraser is professor emeritus of the University of Ulster and the author of Chaim Weizmann: The Zionist Dream. Andrew Mango [1926–2014] was a longtime manager of Turkish broadcasts for BBC External Services [now called BBC World Service]. He is the author of Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, From the Sultan to Ataturk: Turkey, and The Turks Today. Robert McNamara is currently a lecturer in International History at the University of Ulster at Coleraine and the author of Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, 1952–1972: From the Egyptian Revolution to the Six-Day War.