Reddit reviews A History of the Middle East: Fifth Edition

The decline of the Ottoman Empire can be traced back as early as the 1600's. The peak of the empire is often considered to have happened in 1520-1566 under Sulaiman the Magnificent and gradually declined in power from this point onward. Like all complex situations, there were several issues that caused the decline of the Ottoman Empire but I will be only examining economics and military aspects related to actions with Europe. I gathered my information from Peter Mansfield's book, 'A History of the Middel East'.

During the medieval era, Europe experienced a time of both economic and social stagnation. This was not the case in areas controlled by the Ottoman Empire (most of which is geographically considered the Middle East). Reasons for Ottoman dominance can be traced to the powerful system the sultans maintained over their empire. Sultans held great power and used it to create a strict institution based on the preservation of Ottoman culture. With little political resistance against the sultan, he was allowed to keep the empire on track and prosperous while neighboring European countries were lost in disorganization.

Mansfield argued that the tide of dominance between the Ottoman Empire and Europe begins to change in the 1600's because of the emergence of capitalism. Feudal societies are often attributed as the first steps towards modern capitalism and could be seen in effect in many places throughout Europe. The Ottoman Empire did not begin this development as early as Europe because of overconfidence amongst the Arab and Turkish people and also because of the rigid and ultra-conservative control by the sultans. Throughout the centuries, the Ottoman Empire began to decline in economic terms compared to Europe and its more efficient capitalist system. In order to reverse this trend, Ottoman sultans attempted to open up the Turkish economy for European investors. Many deals, known as the Capitulations, were made with European nations that allowed European merchants to move more freely within the Ottoman Empire. Examples of certain Capitulations includes European citizens not being help to laws in the empire ( which operated mostly under Sharia law) and paying very few taxes.

Mansfield concluded that through economic means Europe was able to peacefully infiltrate into an empire that they saw as hostile and slowly weaken it. Europe was able to further outpace the empire because of the one-sided trade environment that was created. It also didn't help that many European merchants abused the Capitulations by breaking laws or avoiding the minuscule tax all together. By the 1900's, the Ottoman Empire was only able to continue to exist because of European nations propping it up. The empire was able to last until the end of the First World War because European powers feared its collapse would cause a power vacuum which would lead to a sort of European civil war. After WWI this sort of became irrelevant because of Germany's collapse. France and Britain also wanted land holdings in the Middle East and had no moral problems carving up their vanquished Ottoman foe into different spheres through the Sykes-Picot agreement.

The media is useless. Honestly, just do some reading. I highly recommend History of the Middle East. It's a very in-depth, impartial look at the Middle East starting with a quick one-chapter primer to get you up to speed from ancient to modern times, then going much more in-depth starting around 1800 up to modern day problems such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

If you want to confine your reading to the Arab-Israeli conflict, then I would recommend The Iron Wall which will start you off around 1947, post WWII.

The Israel/Gaza fiasco is just the latest in a looooong chain of events. Again, anyone coming down solely on one side over the other is simply ignorant of all of the facts. There's no such thing as an innocent player in this and to pretend there is is simply foolish.