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David Fromkin

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East Paperback – September 1, 2001

by David Fromkin (Author)

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A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
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The critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling account of how the modern Middle East came into being after World War I, and why it is in upheaval today

In our time the Middle East has proven a battleground of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and dynasties. All of these conflicts, including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis that have flared yet again, come down, in a sense, to the extent to which the Middle East will continue to live with its political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed upon the region by the Allies after the First World War.

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies came to remake the geography and politics of the Middle East, drawing lines on an empty map that eventually became the new countries of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all-even an alliance between Arab nationalism and Zionism-seemed possible he raises questions about what might have been done differently, and answers questions about why things were done as they were. The current battle for a Palestinian homeland has its roots in these events of 85 years ago.

Print length

672 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Holt Paperbacks
Publication date

September 1, 2001
Dimensions

5.51 x 1.22 x 8.28 inches
ISBN-10

0805068848
ISBN-13

978-0805068849
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wonderful...No book published in recent years has more lasting relevance to our understanding of the Middle East."—Jack Miles, Los Angeles Book Review

"Extraordinarily ambitious, provocative and vividly written...Fromkin unfolds a gripping tale of diplomatic double-dealing, military incompetence and political upheaval."—Reid Beddow, Washington Post Book World

"Ambitious and splendid...An epic tale of ruin and disillusion...of great men, their large deeds and even larger follies."—Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal

"[It] achieves an ideal of historical writing: its absorbing narrative not only recounts past events but offers a useful way to think about them....The book demands close attention and repays it. Much of the information here was not available until recent decades, and almost every page brings us news about a past that troubles the present."—Naomi Bliven, The New Yorker

"One of the first books to take an effective panoramic view of what was happening, not only in Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, and the Arab regions of Asia but also in Afghanistan and central Asia....Readers will come away from A Peace to End All Peace not only enlightened but challenged—challenged in a way that is brought home by the irony of the title."—The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Historian David Fromkin is a professor at Boston University and the author of several acclaimed books of nonfiction. He lives in New York City.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Holt Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 1, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 672 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805068848
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805068849
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 1.22 x 8.28 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #168,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #70 in Turkey History (Books)
- #95 in War & Peace (Books)
- #189 in Israel & Palestine History (Books)

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211 ratings

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JL

Note to amateur historians

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2018

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Want to share my opinion, hoping to save potential readers some time. My goal with this book, as a casual reader of history, was to try and understand how the modern Middle East came to be, and how the west was complicit in carving it up. This is not the book. It is exceedingly dry, rote facts chapter after chapter, and not at all involving. I did suffer through it, but it took a long time...a few dreary pages at a time. It would be more useful if used as a reference book, specifically for events leading up to and immediately after WWI. Also, note that the book leaves you at around 1922, with little to no explanation as to what occurred after. There must be a better and less painful book to educate yourself on this subject in general. I relied on the NYTs endorsements, which in retrospect were pretty misleading. Hope this review helps someone.

78 people found this helpful

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aky13

Want to Learn Something About the Origins of the Current Mess in the Middle East?

Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2014

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As I write this, I am fast approaching my 67th birthday. When I grew up, ALL history classes ENDED with the death or Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria whose assassination was the nominal "cause" of World War I. My history classes never went beyond, which - as I now know - omits very important parts of history. Parts that led directly to World War II, and - as clearly explained by David Fromkin - the current mess in the Middle East.

Mr. Fromkin takes you from the machinations that led to the war. The mistakes in judgement by the Brits and others. Through the actual war and offers rational and reasonable explanations for the nearly continuous hostilities in the Middle East.

Fromkin's writing style is well suited for general readers. His work is thoroughly documented.

If you want either a primary understanding of the "War to end all wars," as World War I was known, or a better understanding of the war, its origins and its results, I highly recommend this book.

NOTE: Some historians believe that World War II was actually a continuation of World War I. That the 20 year interlude was necessary to give birth to and raise a generation of soldiers for the continuance since World War I virtually wiped out an entire generation in at least three countries. World War I literally changed the face of the global map. Countries vanished while others were created. At least two "empires" were dissolved. In my opinion, it is IMPORTANT to learn about this war.

9 people found this helpful

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scrivener

how they tied a new Gordian knot

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2009

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This book explains how the Western powers divided the Middle East in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the end of World War One. To understand the Middle East today, to understand the attitude of Arab and other Middle Eastern nations towards America, the UK, and Israel, it is absolutely indispensible to appreciate what happened at that juncture in history and why. The platitudinous and oversimplified slogans and headlines of our mass media routinely underserve the reader of current events in the Middle East, but an in depth study of history is the antidote. The author is healing ignorance with this book, covering the relevant and required topics evenly and interestingly. Its a big task but Fromkin does it, and the result is complicated but necessarily so.

The book includes much important information concerning Zionism, the political movement to settle Western Jews in Palestine and establish a Jewish ethnic homeland there, which culminated in 1947 with the founding of the Jewish state of Israel. However, if I could find only one fault with this book, and only one suggestion for improvement in an updated editing, it would be that this material should be expanded. One can understand why it might have been a light touch, considering how hotly feelings run on the topic among those who are familiar with Middle Eastern history and current events. Yet, the author's narrative economizes on space devoted to this topic to the point of omission. A fantastic book this is, but expansion of the treatment on this topic would bring definite improvement. The challenge of course is that the culmination of the Zionist project was after World War Two, but the time frame in this book precedes it. Perhaps a companion volume could be recommended to the author?

Historians may recall the Gordian knot-- legend says that he who could untie it would conquer Asia. Alexander the Great cut it, and conquered Asia. To reverse the legend, it seems to me like understanding the Middle East is like understanding how a new Gordian knot was tied in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A most difficult task, and this book accomplishes it.

7 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A brilliant narrative overview.

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2017

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This book is a classic account which represents a formidable work of scholarship. It is explicitly based on a wide reading mostly of the secondary literature, but is none the worse for that, at a time when specialist historians tend to shy away from a large canvas --which is unfortunate for the general reader wanting a compelling account of a wide sweep of history. The device of placing Churchill as central to the story is something of a stretch given that, while he was indeed central at times, this was certainly not the case throughout the period covered but it would be a mistake for this to be allowed to distract from a wonderful overall account which does so much to expose the roots of issues that endure to the present in the Middle East.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

P. Scrivener

A tangled web

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2011

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I came to this book from both the UK and US reviews and have not been disappointed. The book is anglocentric (not a criticism) but it covers a huge amount of ground on complex issues in a rounded way.

The information on the interplay of forces both military and political, particulalry between Britain, Russia and Turkey was was well brought and fascinating. The role of Clemenceau in trying to limit French exposure in the region is of interest. A pity his counterparts in Britain could not have had as much foresight instead riding so many horses in Arabia, Palestine and Syria that they were bound to please virtually nobody. The use of the jewish desire for a homeland, the arab desire for autonomy used as a balance to offset the war aims of Germany and Turkey is well described. As is Kitchener and the Arab Bureau's both misreading of the region and their misleading representations that affected policy during the war.

I actually came away from reading this with a new respect for the Turks. Whatever the shambolic failings of the Ottoman Empire of the period, the gutsy determination of their oft maligned military was surprising. Apart from quality of the defending at Gallipoli (admittedly bolstered by competent german support), the ineptitude of the British command when they could have walked into Constantinople virtually unchallenged, because the Turks had run out of ammunition, an action that could have brought WW1 to a much swifter conclusion, highlights that quality of operational command, planning and their obverse blind luck are never far away from any complex military operation.

The roles of Churchill and Lloyd George are well brought out. It is hard to credit given the level of political discourse in this country now that such politial giants, for all their sometimes major faults once ran this country. The roles of the adminstrators and their own political prejudices and ambitions is well desribed. Mark Sykes influence and naivety are brought out in some detail. The machinations of the Arab Bureau in Egypt would have led to mass dismissals, had anybody in the British cabinet had a grip on what was actually happening there.

This really was the high water mark of British imperial ambitions and pretensions. An almost anachronistic hangover from late victorian imperial and cultural pride and self-belief, to post war self doubt, near bankruptcy and social implosion. The transition of the Northcliffe press from pro war 1914 to anti middle east involvment in 1921-22 is illustrative of that change of worldview, although the pull of empire continued for many decades.

It is also interesting to note how Lloyd George tried to push the mandate for Palestine on to the Americans, and may well have succeeded in doing so had Woodrow Wilson lived. What would the region have looked like then I wonder.

I would read this book in conjunction Corelli Barnett's 'The Collapse of British Power' to get a fuller picture of the relationship between Britain and the Dominions. and how attitudes changed both because of the war and because of the liberal elites attachment to the benfits of empire at the neglect of Britain itself.

All together a superb book that his significantly broadened my historical perspective and understanding of the middle east. Highly recommended.

5 people found this helpful

Geoffrey Woollard

This brilliant book - an historical thriller through and through!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2008

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I am an enthusiastic amateur family historian and I have puzzled a while over an important (to my wife and I) family question: how come my wife's great uncle, Captain Thomas John Catchpole (1888 - 1917), of Lidgate, Suffolk, and of the 5th Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, was killed by the Turks at Gaza?

Subsidiary questions have also been in my mind: why were the Turks/Ottomans our enemies in the so-called 'Great War'?; what determined the demise of the Turkish/Ottoman Empire, under which many races, including Jews, Arabs and Turks, had lived relatively peaceably?; and how did the present-day 'Middle East' become such a problem area?

I am also a member of the 'what if' school of history: this book is one of those that inspire endless speculation. If decisions had been made differently and events had taken a different course, maybe my wife's great uncle's descendants could still be living at Lidgate.

For example, what if the British Cabinet had acted on Winston Churchill's urging in 1911 to make an alliance with the Turks/Ottomans?

And if the 'Great War' had gone on for two years only (the German General Ludendorff believed the entry of the Turks/Ottomans into the war allowed the outnumbered Central powers to fight on for two years longer than they would have been able on their own), my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

And if Winston Churchill's Dardanelles plans had prevailed over those of Lord Kitchener in March, 1915, Constantinople would have fallen, and my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

As it was, it appears that numerous attempts were made to subvert, to attack, and to conquer the Turks/Ottomans, the defeat of whom could - and, maybe, should - have been accomplished in 1915, and my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

This brilliant book - an historical thriller through and through - has provided me with much information and most of the answers and I am so grateful to David Fromkin for researching and writing it and to Amazon for selling it to me.

It is quite clear to me now that the alliance between Germany and the Turks/Ottomans was at best an unintended mistake and at worst the secret design of a very few of the Turkish leaders. It could have been done very differently, with Turkey and the Ottoman Empire continuing to maintain their neutrality, to the benefit of the British and of the world.

And it also appears from Fromkin's account that the successive collapses of the British, French and Russian Governments were directly attributable to the Dardanelles disaster. In the case of Russia, of course, this meant a fatal finale for the Czar and his family and the rise of Lenin and Bolshevism.

There came on the scene in 1917 one Woodrow Wilson, as ignorant regarding Britain, France, Russia and the Turkish/Ottoman Empire as many Americans, but as determined, nevertheless, to do down the British as his later successor, Franklin Roosevelt. Despite having some high-flown thoughts, Mr Wilson helped little.

All in all, it is once again amazing to me that two great British statesmen, Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, should have been so full of foresight and wisdom. It's all too obvious that the others, including Wilson, were political pygmies.

I suppose now and with hindsight that I would probably have preferred for the Ottoman Empire to have been maintained, as Churchill often wanted, or, failing that, for the British Empire to have been vastly extended - for good!

I spotted one error (on page 299, in a section on the role of Louis D. Brandeis, later the first Jewish member of the United States Supreme Court): 'Only one Jew [Oscar Strauss] had ever been a member of the president's cabinet.' Not true: Judah Philip Benjamin played prominent roles in the cabinet of President Jefferson Davis.

(An extremely interesting piece of information gleaned from the book is that Baghdad and Jerusalem, before the War, were home to the largest populations of Jews in the Middle East. 'Jews in large numbers had lived in the Mesopotamian provinces since the time of the Babylonian captivity - about 600 BC - and thus were settled in the country a thousand years before the coming of the Arabs in AD 634.').

There has been some criticism that this book is too much about Great Britain and its leaders and people. To answer the criticism I quote the following (from page 385): 'The Prime Minister (Lloyd George) claimed that Britain was entitled to play the dominant role in the Middle East, recalling that at one time or another two and a half million British troops had been sent there, and that a quarter of a million had been killed or wounded; while the French, Gallipoli apart, had suffered practically no casualties in the Middle East, and the Americans had not been there at all.'

Thoroughly recommended: I couldn't put it down!

A personal post-script:

In the Autumn of 1917, following two earlier failed attempts by General Murray in the first half of that year, General Allenby invaded (from Egypt, which was under British protection) Palestine, and my wife's great uncle, Captain Thomas John Catchpole, was killed, during the third battle of Gaza, on the 3rd of November (reportedly fatally injured by a Turk soldier and then shot by a fellow British officer, in the presence of his own younger brother, to put him out of his misery, there being no chance that he would live), and lies buried at the Deir El Belah War Cemetery. And the Middle East is still a problem.

Ulrik Jungersen Walther

What a fine mess

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2008

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If you want to put the Middle East into a historical perspective and understand its present day difficulties there is no better book than this, and despite being 20 years old, it still stands completely unrivaled. It is insightful, well balanced, eloquently written and at times almost reads like an adventure story.

The book covers the region from the outbreak of war in 1914 and through to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. Fromkin gets away with covering this enormous canvas on which many books could be written on single topics (and indeed have). He does this by following a clear story line, not over emphasizing certain periods and by not peddling a political agenda.

The book is essentially built around Winston Churchill large sections are also devoted to other contemporary grandees such as Asquith, Lloyd George, Balfour, Lord Kitchener, General Allenby, Sir Mark Sykes, Francois Picot, Emir Hussein, King Faisal, Enver Pasha, Attaturk, TE Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and many other splendid characters. These people are richly described and make the book come alive in a way, where most other popular history books fail miserably.

The book also elegantly incorporates the imperial political thinking of the time and provides excellent coverage of the drivers and motivations of specially the British in their involvement in the conflict. It covers the intrigues, manipulations and conspirations that took place both within the British government and between the allies, whose main goal it was to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, weakened by gradual disintegration, carve up its constituent parts between them. The Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration being excellent examples hereof. One is left with the impression that this was a game of "Risk" on a massive scale. In fact on such a large scale that it stretched the British Empire beyond its political and military means, which again resulted in appalling execution with extraordinary and needless loss of life.

The price of these ambitions proved high for all parties. The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1922 and Enver Pasha died on a battlefield near Dushanbe in Tajikstan fighting the Red Army in 1924. But also for the British Empire, this was the "beginning of the end". Australia began to lose confidence in Britain following the Gallipoli disaster, after years of fighting hopeless battles in Europe, Iraq and Turkey, British soldiers increasingly became mutinous and were turning against the establishment. In his description of this period, Fromkin really picks up on the political current of the time and describes how Churchill understood this and probably avoided severe social unrest in the UK.

The book effectively finishes with the 1923 Lausanne peace treaty. Britain had been replaced by the United States as the world's number one superpower. The US did not favour colonialism and hence the Sykes-Picot Agreement was confined to the historical archives. Instead Churchill and Gertrude Bell drew up a map of a new Middle East, created Palestine (under British mandate) and Syria / Lebanon under French. Feisal needed a kingdom, so they created Iraq. If Feisal was getting a kingdom, Abdullah wanted one too. So they drew Jordan. It was random, sure to create problems for the future and by no stretch of anyones imagination "their finest hour".

The book draws on a superb range of sources, is extremely well researched and has a bibliography large enough to populate a small library.

hbw

Excellent background to understanding the Middle East

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 1, 2008

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At times this reads more like a Cold War thriller than a political history. There are enough secret societies, conspiracy theories and shady diplomatic deals here to keep John le Carré in plots for a month of Sundays.

"The Middle East" is a European invention. In 1914, when the story begins, the "Middle Eastern Question", as far as the Allies were concerned, was about how to divide up the lands that lay between French North Africa, Russian Asia and British India, once the decaying Ottoman Empire had breathed its last.

By 1922, when the story ends, only the new Soviet Union still had a taste for empire-building. The former territories of the Sultan had become a series of notionally independent nation states designed to be run by European "advisors". "The Middle Eastern Question" had not been solved: it had just been changed.

David Fromkin suggests that Europe's approach to the Middle East in 1914 should be seen as part of "Great Game" that had dominated foreign policy in the East in the preceding century. It was this view, combined with astonishing official incompetence, that lead Allied politicians to make disastrous misjudgements about the Arab-speaking peoples and the role of Islam in the political life of the region.

I read this book to learn about the background to the current situation in the Middle East. I was not disappointed. It's a complex story and the author does a first rate job of disentangling it, drawing on previously closed official sources.

Written in 1989, this predates the First Gulf War. An unintended, but poignant, consequence is that Fromkin sometimes describes events of 90 years ago in phrases that could easily appear in today's news bulletins.

"A Peace to End All Peace" is an excellent and accessible work of political history.

6 people found this helpful

Haris

One of the best books of our time

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2020

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This is a really important book which shows us why the Middle East suffers from so many different problems.

The fact that decisions made over 100 years ago still effect us to this day is astonishing.

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