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Peace to End All Peace, 20th Anniversary Edition Paperback – July 21, 2009

by David Fromkin (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 535 ratings
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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.

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  1. Print length
    688 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    July 21, 2009
  4. Dimensions
    5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0805088091
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0805088090
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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

David Fromkin (1932-2017) was a professor at Boston University and the author of several acclaimed books of nonfiction, including A Peace to End All Peace, The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh, Secret Partners. He lived in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador Paper
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 21, 2009
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 20th Anniversary
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 688 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805088091
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805088090
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 1.2 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 535 ratings

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  1. Kaya Oakes

    Kaya Oakes

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
535 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find this book to be an essential read that provides good insight and is well documented, with one customer noting it's crucial for understanding today's world. Moreover, the book receives positive feedback for its coverage of the 1905-1922 period, with one review describing it as a classic of modern history writing and research. However, the book's complexity receives mixed reactions, with one customer finding it confusing at times.

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ReadabilityInformation qualityHistorical accuracyComplexity
72 customers mention "Readability"57 positive15 negative

Customers find the book highly readable and consider it essential reading, with one customer describing it as an outstanding exegesis.

"Good book, very insightful into history around that region." Read more

"As I read this wonderful book, I conjured a fantasy of a White House meeting held a couple of months before the Bush Administration’s fateful 2002..." Read more

"A well written book on a vitally important issue we all need to understand. Especially enlightening was the comment that the...." Read more

"...This is a very readable history of the late 1910s and early 1920s and helps you understand "the Great Game" and how the English, the French, and the..." Read more

40 customers mention "Information quality"40 positive0 negative

Customers praise the book's well-documented content and detailed explanations of nuances, with one customer noting it provides essential context for understanding today's world.

"...The book gives a valuable insight into how the Middle East got to where it is today. Unfortunately, not much has changed in political policy." Read more

"Good book, very insightful into history around that region." Read more

"...hits on the one and only cause, but he does have an important and interesting idea about one thing that went wrong...." Read more

"...Much disillusionment by the leaders of this era. Very good factual detail coming from this Author about post WW1 politics." Read more

27 customers mention "Historical accuracy"27 positive0 negative

Customers praise the book's historical accuracy, particularly its coverage of the period from 1905 to 1922 and its status as a classic of modern history writing and research.

"A well written book on a vitally important issue we all need to understand. Especially enlightening was the comment that the...." Read more

"...this book it's in no way shocking to see this book is rated #1 in Middle Eastern history...." Read more

"...I enjoyed the read and would recommend the book just for the historical presentation ," Read more

"Fromkin has created a brilliant history of the Middle East following WW1...." Read more

5 customers mention "Complexity"0 positive5 negative

Customers find the book complex and difficult to follow, with one customer noting it gets confusing at times and another mentioning the tedious sorting out of all the people.

"...It provided a very detailed account, not well organized in my opinion, of the fall of the Ottoman empire and the dominant impacts of European..." Read more

"...personalities, prejudices, and perfidies involved, it does get confusing at times and takes a lot of concentration to keep the various players..." Read more

"...The author unravels a story that is far too convoluted, far too complex, for any writer of lesser intellect than David Fromkin...." Read more

"...Tedious sorting out all the people in a room - many unnecessary to mention but one feels obligated to note and try to remember as they might pop up..." Read more

print job, impossible to read.
1 out of 5 stars
print job, impossible to read.
I really wanted to read this book. However the printing was defective, line down the middle of most pages on right side where printing left a blank white line.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Moritz
    5.0 out of 5 stars Read slowly to absorb the details. Record page numbers on the last page for going back for review.
    Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2025
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Most informative. It shows how politicians work for their own aggrandizement, and rarely for the people, whom they use as mere pawns. The book gives a valuable insight into how the Middle East got to where it is today. Unfortunately, not much has changed in political policy.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Thomas M. Sullivan
    5.0 out of 5 stars Coffee with Professor Fromkin
    Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    As I read this wonderful book, I conjured a fantasy of a White House meeting held a couple of months before the Bush Administration’s fateful 2002 decision to invade Iraq. In attendance were the usual suspects: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Dick Rumsfeld, et al. But some sage attendee had also suggested the inclusion of Professor Fromkin who was asked to reflect on the notion of such an adventure in light of his study of the history of the Middle East. The professor went on for a couple of hours describing the events leading up to, and then following, the allied victory in World War One: the British change of heart about the essential integrity of the Ottoman Empire; the second and third thoughts about the Balfour Declaration; the ex parte division by the allies of the human and territorial spoils of war; the resultant festering resentment of foreign domination; the brutal machinations of the occupiers (especially the French in Algeria and elsewhere); the interwoven, ever-lasting, invariably brutal sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia…the list went on and on. The government officials sat in rapt fascination at the professor’s tale. They thanked him for his visit, and upon his departure, took just moments to conclude that any such invasion would be a historically tragic mistake.

    Of course, such a conclave was never convened. Despite many attendees’ knowledge of the same history Professor would have recounted, the invasion decision was taken and its predictable (if someone were listening and thinking) consequences dog us and the rest of the world to this day.

    We history buffs are especially enamored of Santayana’s observation that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But I guess governments don’t read history books, no less invite an authority on a particular region or period in for a coffee and a chat before a momentous and irreversible decision is made. More’s the pity. The upshot is this: if you believe your knowledge of the Middle East is not quite what it should be and you wonder from time to time why certain events happen and others do not in this perpetually troubled part of the world, just read this book. Then you will know what our Iraq invasion decision makers didn’t...or chose to forget.
    134 people found this helpful
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  • Esraa Rad
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
    Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2025
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Good book, very insightful into history around that region.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Black, Matthew
    4.0 out of 5 stars All OIF vets, and politicians, should read this.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2015
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    As a x2 Iraq vet, I was always troubled and interested in the modern history of the middle east. If you want a really gut wrenching account of how the west completely screwed up an entire region, look no further. The incompetence of civic leaders, their blatant arrogance and greed, their backdoor dealings and re-dealings, the political swings, the sheer luck of some incidents, and the silliness of so-called "intellectuals", comes to the fore in this great book. If you have dreams of quality international politics or agreements, this book will shatter them. Many of the accounts could easily have been written today and be believable.

    The book is well divided into chapters, but requires careful reading to keep up with the people, places, and politics. A quick bio of key players right at the outset would have been quite beneficial.

    Only giving it four stars because it really needs some full-page maps, particularly for the campaigns and showing national boundaries in the 1918s. Finding a quality map of the late Ottoman empire and modern middle east is essential if you're going to follow the campaigns, as the map is unfortunately devoid of any maps. GoogleEarth was a great help, and you can also get an idea for the key terrain (Hejaz for example)
    197 people found this helpful
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  • Sonya Lindblom
    5.0 out of 5 stars All the background information needed to understand the present
    Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    A well written book on a vitally important issue we all need to understand. Especially enlightening was the comment that the. Arab collection of tribes became excellent at war but rotten at governing. That still seems to be the case, with the fragmentary leadership and rivalries counterproductive to achieving their aims.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Aiex Halo
    5.0 out of 5 stars take notes while reading
    Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    take notes while reading, I'm just 100 pages in (have skimmed through for research years earlier) and I'm already utterly blown away by the seemingly impenetrable morass of confusion, misinformation, paranoia, anti-Semitism, Russo-phobia, political gambling, and a truly inexplicable belief in a cabal of "Gipsy-Jews" and "Jewish and Latin [Free]Masonry" (pg 42) somehow controlling the Young Turks, unfolding just between August and December 1914 that David Fromkin pries apart and lays out with a narrative ease so concise and informative that I had to re-read entire passages just to be clear that what I was reading was actually unfolding as plainly described, being used to general history texts and documentaries casually skimming over causes and events with a few sentences of "entity secretly engaged entity, failed, war were declared".

    from earlier readings I also got a sense of just how amazingly tenuous the communications between British Cairo and Emir Hussein were that a single man, Muhammad al-Faruqi, could perfectly damage and disorient negotiations by meeting with the British and the Arabs and claiming to represent the opposite side. al-Faruqi "...drew and redrew the frontiers of countries and empires, in the course of exchanges among the British Residency, the Emir of Mecca, and Arab nationalist leaders, each of whom took al-Faruqi to be the emissary of one of the other parties" (pg 178).

    even that is not even half-way through this book it's in no way shocking to see this book is rated #1 in Middle Eastern history.

    also recommended is the documentary Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I which also features the author of this book David Fromkin in it.
    27 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Fabio Bernardini
    5.0 out of 5 stars Assolutamente da leggere
    Reviewed in Italy on February 28, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Questo libro e bellissimo. Se si vuole capire qualcosa sulla Prima Guerra Mondiale che vada oltre i libri di testo di scuola bisogna leggerlo. Con la scusa di parlare della guerra sul fronte Ottomano, l’autore di fatto scrive una storia della Prima Guerra Mondiale incentrato non sulke battaglie ma sulla politica che ha influenzato l’andamento della guerra. Due cose appaiono in modo originale. Primo: la guerra sarebbe potuta finire prima (forse nel 1917) se Churchill e Loyd George avessero potuto far prevalere la loro strategia. Secondo: Laurence d’Arabia tanto osannato come eroe ne esce con le ossa rotte, risulta essere un impostore, un millantatore di successi mai avuti. Per capire questo leggere il libro ne vale veramente il prezzo.
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  • Vikas
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good presentation of a complex part of history
    Reviewed in India on July 31, 2020
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Nicely presented with facts and analysis. However, Paperback version has small font size which strains the eyes.
    Report
  • Quenzel, Benjamin
    5.0 out of 5 stars 1500 Jahre New World Order 3418 AD
    Reviewed in Germany on November 30, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Es habe. so schließt David Fromkin, nach dem Fall des weströmischen Reiches 1500 Jahre gebraucht, bis sich eine allgemein akzeptierte Staatenordnung in Europa herausbildete. nach dem Fall des osmanischen Reiches 1917/18 könnte es ähnlich lange dauern. Die Friedensordnung von Sykes- Picot-sasonnov ist jedenfalls keine Ordnung, die von den Betroffenen als legitim akzeptiert wird. im Kernbereich des Abkommens - Syrien, Irak, Libanon. Jordanien, Israel und Palästina sind Staaten entstanden, deren Existenzrecht alltäglich, innerlich, äußerlich, wechselseitig in Frage steht. Warum es so kam, erschließt Fromkin in typisch angelsächsischer Erzählkunst mit Spannungsmoment und anekdotenoriginalität.

    Erstens ist die Ordnung des nahen Ostens entlang der Erfordernisse längst untergegangener Weltreiche definiert.
    Zweitens: die Handelnden selbst glaubten schlussendlich nicht an die Zielführung ihrer Bemühungen. Sir Mark Sykes nahm die Skepsis über das mit seinem Namen verbundene Abkommen 1918 mit ins Grab. Drittens: die völlige Ignoranz der Akteure gegenüber dem Lokalkolorit, auch der Religion. Lord Kitchener meinte, die Einsetzung eines haschemitischen Kalifen könne die Moslems für die alliierte Sache gewinnen.
    Viertens formte das britische Empire seine nahostkoalitionen mit sehr fragwürdigen Bündnispartnern und Techniken: feisal-, Abdullah- Hussein, Lawrence von Arabien, waren schwache bis gefährliche Bündnispartner oder Protagonisten. Palästina wurde drei Mächten gleichzeitig versprochen, jeweils aus augenblickserwägungen.

    Unter den Hypothesen des Autoren finden sich auch einige Extravaganzen. So die These, die balfour-Deklaration fusse auf dem Glauben an eine jüdische weltverschwörung, um die einflussreichen zionistischen Kreise in den Hauptstädten der Mittelmächte zum Umsturz zu bewegen, habe man ein Angebot machen müssen. Unglaublich oder wahr?

    Die staaten von Sykes/Pilot sind dysfunktional. möglicherweise wird es keine vollen 1500 Jahre dauern, bis sich die alte Welt neu sortiert. es wird Gewinner- und verliererstaaten geben, wie Burgund oder Savoyen. dass die windschiefen Gebäude des Iraks oder syriens diesen Prozess überstehen werden, fällt nach Lektüre dieses Buchs schwer. Höchstens als Hülle falsch verstandener unverletzlichkeitsdogmen des Völkerrechts haben diese Staaten eine Zukunft. territorial verfasster Zynismus des ersten Weltkriegs.
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  • Shireen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Future read
    Reviewed in Australia on June 27, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The book arrived in heart time and great condition. I am looking forward to reading it.
    Report
  • Bill
    5.0 out of 5 stars Pleased with my purchase
    Reviewed in Canada on December 10, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I was looking for a book to give me some background on the ongoing, and seemingly unending, conflict in the Middle East. After checking out a large selection of books, and authors, I settled on this one, and, so far I have not been disappointed. The amount of research that has gone into this book is epic! The amount of detail is almost mind boggling. Fromkin puts to rest the common perception that there is a simple cause and a simple solution to most situations. There are so many players, and motivations in "The Game", as Fromkin calls it, it is impossible to tell who is allied with whom, and for how long, and what is the "end game" for each player. It seems that many of the decisions made, that have far reaching consequences, were made on the basis of misinformation, greed, and stupidity. The book also makes the political leaders in many jurisdictions look like the self centered scoundrels that they profess not to be.
    I find that I am not "reading" this book but rather "studying" it. I hope that the rest of the book is as good as the part that I have read already.
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