Reddit Reddit reviews A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

We found 8 Reddit comments about A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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8 Reddit comments about A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East:

u/Mehworth · 14 pointsr/worldnews

I'm currently reading Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace," and while I just started it, it's pretty clear that the Russians and Brits were instrumental in setting the course for the modern Middle East. We (the U.S.) just threw our shoulder to the wheel later on.

u/caferrell · 3 pointsr/EndlessWar

There is a terrific book about the machinations of Great Britain and France to use WWI to break up the Ottoman Empire and grab the Middle East, that explains in fascinating detail how we got into our present mess. Check it out
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

u/blackstar9000 · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

You could, of course, interpret it damned near any way you please, but the more you familiarize yourself with the actual historical background, the more difficult that particular interpretation will be to maintain.

The fact of the matter is that Iran and Iraq are products of the attempt by Western powers (primarily Britain, Russia, and France, but also the U.S.) to stage manage politics in the region during the very periods you're talking about. Prior to World War I, present-day Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire. With the dissolution of the Empire, Mesopotamian territory fell into British hands, and it was the Sykes-Picot Agreements that largely determined the borders that defined the modern nation of Iraq. For a more detailed picture of Western influence in the Arabian peninsula during WWI, I'd suggest A Peace to End All Peace.

Iran was mostly successful in navigating the Great Game, right up until World War II when the British and Russians decided that it was too chummy with Germany and invaded it to control its railroad lines for their strategic value. After the war, embargoes by Britain and the U.S. disrupted the political status quo there, ultimately leading up to Operation Ajax, which instigated the coup d'etat of Iran's democratically elected prime minister and his replacement with authoritarian client rule. That set the stage for the Iranian Revolution in '79, which is more or less how we got to the present state of affairs.

So, if anything, I would say that our recent stance against Iraq and Iran have been, at best, attempts to rectify problems we helped created, and at worst, failures to learn the lessons of those periods

u/lolmonger · 2 pointsr/PoliticalDiscussion

In no particular order:

http://www.amazon.com/Beirut-Jerusalem-Thomas-L-Friedman/dp/1250015499

http://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabia-Deceit-Imperial-Making-ebook/dp/B00BH0VSPI/ref=zg_bs_4995_5

http://www.amazon.com/My-Promised-Land-Triumph-Tragedy-ebook/dp/B009QJMXI8/ref=zg_bs_4995_4


http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553/ref=zg_bs_4995_10

http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-Thought-Liberal-Age-1798-1939/dp/0521274230/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3

http://www.amazon.com/History-Arab-Peoples-Albert-Hourani/dp/0446393924/ref=cm_lmf_tit_4

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Gender-Islam-Historical-Modern/dp/0300055838/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

http://www.amazon.com/Emergence-Modern-Studies-Eastern-History/dp/0195134605/ref=cm_lmf_tit_10

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805068848/ref=cm_lmf_tit_17


As a non-Muslim, non-Jew, non-Arab, non-Semite, American, and having read these (yay strict immigrant parents!) and some other histories, as well as having had the attacks of 9/11 give me a neurosis about following the news in the Middle East/Central/South Asia as regards potential US involvement and issues:


A lot feels familiar to me, some of it even seems like stuff I know a good deal about, and a few things about "The Middle East" which is a massively rich and complex sociopolitical place and slice of humanity are things I'd consider myself very well read on.


And I don't know shit.


I can tell you as a native born American and US voter what I think my country's policies (in a limited, broad strokes sense) should be - - - but beyond that, there's very little I've ever seen as conclusive and firm coming from anyone who by dint of identity didn't have 'skin in the game' .

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/politics

you can criticize Israel all you want. Tom Friedman does it and it's not abnormal too. There's a clear line though.
"Get the hell outta Palestine" vs "Settlements are not helping anything" is very different.
Hell- I'm critical of Israel, yet at the same time I support it's right to exist. They're not antithetical beliefs.

Also- historically- There's a book you should read if you haven't: A Peace to End all peace.
There's no reason you can't have two states- that's probably how it's going to end up. It wouldn't surprise me for it really to only work once the last generation to really have experienced the war of independence/al nakba (call it what you will, I don't care) disappears. Until then, it's a holding pattern. The two roadblocks to peace are settlements and the fact that Hamas won't recognize Israel's right to exist. Once these two things happen, it wouldn't surprise me if more level heads can prevail

u/evilwombat · 1 pointr/politics

This is a good point (though it could do without the "douchebags") and should not be downvoted (it was at -7 when I saw it).

I contend that although violence has been reduced, Iranian influence has increased and underlying sectarian tensions remain unresolved. Meanwhile, resentment of the U.S. occupation has risen. National unity, even within the army, is as weak as ever (witness the desertions in the incursion into Basra). Support for a continued U.S. presence appears to be dropping, according to a BBC/ABC poll.

Iraq's government cannot be strengthened and protected with only an unsustainable burst of decreased violence. Political issues, some of them fairly intractable, must be settled by Iraqis themselves. The U.S repeating the blunders Britain made a century ago; it is helping various factions fight each other more effectively and thus prolonging the conflict. I recommend you read A Peace to End All Peace. (This isn't some political diatribe, it's just a great history written in 1989 about mistakes much like these.)

u/kerat · 1 pointr/Arabiya

The context is modern Middle Eastern history.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, as well as the Balfour Declaration are the key points in modern Arab history, that unfortunately most Arabs know nothing about.

It is also important to remember that this man who began the Arab Revolt due to promises made by the English, intended for one Arab state only.

The Arab revolt remains to this day the only war of independence fought by Arabs, unless you choose to count Kuwait's hiring of the US to fight Iraq a popular independence movement. The armies that fought during the Arab revolt were made up of Arabs from various tribes of Arabia, as well as from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, etc. It even contained some Muslim volunteers from India. The Arab revolt saw the emergence of some great Arab heroes of the past century, such as Dhuqan al-Atrash, his son Sultan al-Atrash, Prince Rashed al-Khuzai, Ezz el-din al-Qassam, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, and many many others.

The context is the creation by colonial powers of national states where non existed before.

The context is key to our history as Arabs in a time where we care more about the next iphone than how our countries came to be made.

If you care enough to verify the statements I've made, feel free to read A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, or Inventing Iraq, another great book.

We did not create our countries, they were created for us and the statements and documents made by Balfour and others exist till this day, bragging about how he "drew lines on an empty map" based on accents and oil fields.