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

u/000066 · 82 pointsr/worldnews

You serious? Because the British literally selected the tribal leader Ibn Saud and gave him control of what we now call Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud#Rise_to_power

The Brits mistakenly believed that the King of Mecca was like a Muslim pope and everyone would fall in line behind him. So they created the boundary lines for Iraq and Jordan and placed his sons on the thrones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_bin_Ali,_Sharif_of_Mecca#Following_World_War_I

The founding of Israel was guaranteed by ex prime minister Balfour and later the Sykes-Picot agreement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement


Suggested reading:

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453911664&sr=1-1&keywords=a+peace+to+end+all+peace

http://www.amazon.com/Kingmakers-Invention-Modern-Middle-East/dp/0393337707

u/tinkthank · 49 pointsr/islam

Can we stop spreading this misinformation please?

I keep hearing this and its flat out not true and I hate that it keeps getting brought up.

The vast majority of Arabs did not fight against the Ottomans, they fought for the Ottomans. Did you all really think the Ottoman Army consisted of only Turkish soldiers? 1/3 of the Ottoman military consisted of Arab officers and soldiers. Many of them fought against the British at Galipoli and in Iraq, Palestine, and the Arabian Peninsula. Unless you're talking about members of the Jordanian or Saudi Royal Family, or are affiliated with them, most Arabs did not fight against the Ottomans. Hell, even the Saudis didn't directly fight against the Ottomans until well towards the end of the war, since most of the anti-Ottoman fighting was done by the Hashemite family.

The majority of Arabs fought for the Ottomans, despite the fact that Enver Pasha (the guy responsible for the Armenian Genocide), arrested, tortured, and executed many innocent Arabs because of his own paranoia that they were somehow plotting to have him killed. In fact, we didn't learn until much later that there was no major movement to overthrow the Ottomans in favor of an Arab nationalist government. In fact, even after the Ottoman Empire was defeated, there were many Arabs who were working hard to expel the British and return back to the Ottoman Empire, but when the Mustafa Kemal declared a Turkish Republic in 1923, and all hopes of returning were lost, and that is when we started to see Arab Nationalism really start to take off as an anti-Imperialist movement.

I'm an Indian and let's not forget, that many Indian soldiers, Muslims included did fight against the Ottoman Empire. The explanation that was given to them by their British commanders were that they weren't fighting to overthrow the Caliphate, but to free it from those who have "taken the Sultan hostage" (i.e., the Three Pashas and The Young Turks).

If you want me to recommend one, let's start with this one.

A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin

The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516-1918 by Bruce Masters

More information:

The forgotten Arabs of Gallipoli | Al Jazeera

If you want to learn more about the history of the Ottoman Empire, its life, culture and the people that made up the Empire, then I suggest you subscribe to:

The Ottoman History Podcast

where they actually interview historians and experts in the field.

u/SoItGoes487 · 33 pointsr/history

As a matter of fact, yes! David Fromkin wrote a wonderful book on the subject, "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East." It is engaging and very informative!

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

u/WearingAVegetable · 18 pointsr/AskHistorians

Short answer: no.

Slightly longer answer: The radicalization of Islam in the Middle East ties into the division of the region by the western powers after WWI, and further during the Cold War, when the U.S. (not only, but in particular) supported the rise to power of radical religious figures in opposition to communist/leftist parties & figures who might be sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and therefore potentially threaten U.S./U.K. access to oil in the region. This included aiding in the over-throwing of democratically elected governments in favor of autocratic but U.S./U.K.-favored leaders - most notably the U.S.-led 1953 coup d'etat in Iran, when Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown. The 1978 Iranian Revolution began as a popular uprising against the Shah who replaced him.

For more extensive reading on the subject:

Inventing Iraq by Toby Dodge (I have some major issues with Dodge's conclusions post 9/11, but the historical analysis that makes up the majority of the book is solid)

Spies in Arabia by Priya Satia, and Lawrence in Arabia are good histories of imperial ambition during the WWI period and its after-effects

Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan for the political maneuvering of the Western powers

A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin

I also recommend Edward Said, if you're looking for cultural analysis as well as history

u/EstacionEsperanza · 16 pointsr/islam

A Peace to End all Peace by historian David Fromkin covers this in great detail. It's a great read if you want to be sad and angry and confused.

u/Logical1ty · 13 pointsr/islam

> And I cannot join together the image of a relatively peaceful religion of pretty great people (which I say really without any irony or quote marks) with all the wars that are caused by Islam itself and by its internal differences.

Christianity went through pretty much the same phase, but even more violent and bloody. And unlike the Muslim world, it wasn't precipitated by external forces meddling in internal political affairs. It just spontaneously happened.

I suggest reading this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting in Iraq because of greed, a massive political power vacuum, and the spark that ignited the blaze was Al-Qaeda in Iraq (now ISIS) targeting Shi'ites and their Mosques for attacks, purposefully stoking a civil war (so they could have a chance at seizing control once the civil war took down the government and chased out the US... they wanted to rule over the ashes of Iraq). It failed because the US got the Sunnis to turn on the extremists (the Sunni Awakening). But then Syria collapsed into civil war, so the Iraqi insurgents went there and reorganized, took land, then swept back into Iraq.

A modern Western country could wipe ISIS off the face of the Earth in a ground campaign in probably a few weeks (or less if they were willing to put up with a few casualties). I think they'd prefer just watching what happens and bombing from afar (even when their own citizens become targets of ISIS, desperately trying to get the people behind the bombers to engage them on the ground so they can actually shoot back at them).

The Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in Syria/Iraq played into the pre-existing wider regional conflict between Iran and Saudi-Arabia with Iran's influence extending over Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Assad government in Syria (as well as the Shi'ites in Iraq and Shi'ite minorities in the Persian Gulf). This conflict has been raging since 1979 after Iran's Islamic Revolution (watch the intro to the movie Argo for background on that), after which the CIA instigated their man in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, to fight Iran in a disastrous decade-long conflict.

Sunnis and Shi'ites, like Protestants and Catholics, don't usually just fight and aren't usually at each other's throats but if the situation pushes them enough, they will turn on each other (see: Northern Ireland, which was in modern times, not centuries ago).

This is an extreme simplification.

u/iloveyoujesuschriist · 9 pointsr/todayilearned

>We didn't kill the Armenians because they were Armenians or because we wanted to exterminate their whole race like Hitler, but because it was war and they were our enemies.

People such as Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, who was an early member of the Nazi Party, and Hans von Seeckt spent time in Ottoman Turkey and drew inspiration from what was happening. Even Rudolf Höss, who would later be the commandant of Auschwitz, was there. He joined the German forces in Turkey.

Yes, there was an armed Armenian insurgency, but the Turks responded to that but going to every single Armenian village and slaughtering every single Armenian they could get their hands on, without respect to age or gender. The vast majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with that insurrection. Turkish soldiers took babies and bashed their brains out on rocks. They enticed the help of the Kurds in carrying away the women to be raped. Railways and cattle cars were used to transport Armenian people from one end of the empire to the other, which shares parallels with the trains used to transport Jews to death and labour camps.

Enver Pasha told Henry Morgenthau that the Armenians were being sent to "new quarters", just as the Jews were latter to be "resettled".

Morgenthau himself stated: "Persecutions of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions. Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whole-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, turning into massacre, to bring destruction on them. These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place."

Furthermore, Taalat Pasha said this in an official document to his prefect: "You have already been advised that the Government, by order of the Djemiet, has decided to destroy completely all the indicated persons [Armenians] living in Turkey.

Their existence must come to an end, however tragic the means may be; and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to conscientious scruples."

How on earth can you describe this as anything other than genocide?

EDIT: In case you think that Morgenthau's account is not credible since he was representing a country at war with the Ottoman Empire, I point you towards von Wagenheim, a German ambassador who lead a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire, who recounted that Talat had admitted that the deportations were not "being carried out because of 'military considerations alone'". One month later, he came to the conclusion that there "no longer was doubt that the Porte was trying to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire"

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

Thanks to DrPoop_PhD

u/LIGHTNlNG · 8 pointsr/islam
u/estacado · 6 pointsr/movies

From page 498 of A Peace to End All Peace:
>The public believed Thomas's account; so that when Lawrence became an adviser to Winston Churchill, his appointment over-shadowed all others. His reputation grew. He passed off his fantasies as history, and in the years to come, Lawrence was to claim far more credit for his share in Churchill's achievements as Colonial Secretary than was his due.
.....A few years later Thomas wrote a book called With Lawrence in Arabia, based on the show,repeating the story he had told to his mass audiences of millions around the world. It was an immensely readable, high-spirited write-up of Lawrence's service career—much of it untrue—that made its points through hyper-bole.

Here's a screenshot of the page for more context.

u/shimmyyay · 4 pointsr/videos

If you are interested in further reading about their impact as well as the making of the modern Middle East following WWI, I highly suggest this book. http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

u/itsfineitsgreat · 3 pointsr/worldnews

Dude, I've read...lots and lots of books on the subjects. Saying its "the fault" of the West is highly, highly simplifying a rather complex situation. lol "read wiki".

Dude, read this. Don't ever think that you got informed on something from a wiki article. The West had a role, but it's not like, oh, I dunno, the people of the Arabian Peninsula were just on the sidelines, passively observing.

The same goes for Afghanistan.

u/AndrijKuz · 3 pointsr/history

A PEACE TO END ALL PEACE by David Fromkin. In my opinion, you should start with this before anything else. Well researched, respected in the academic community, well written. It's absolutely one of the best books on the subject, and the first place I would go.

Bonus FYI: the "redrawing" period went on from 1918-1922.

Also, this book is primarily focused on the Middle East, so you won't get as much on post-war Germany, or the African continent. But it will give you tons of context for what happened during the peace conference.

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805088091/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_zs7iDb51WDZHF

Edit spelling.

u/Convexreflection · 2 pointsr/socialism

It has to do with oil and the imperialism, all the contemporary wars in the area was because of oil and colonization. Centuries ago everywhere was war. :) Because of the oil peace has never reached the middle East. Just like Africa and it's minerals.
Iran and the Ottomanian empire made several peace treaties and border definition in 15th and 16th century. They never attacked each other after that.
Edit: I really suggest you to read the book "a peace to end all peace: the fall of the Ottomanian empire and the creation of the modern Middle East", before making such comment. It is from a Westerner's point of view not complete but very informative.
https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

u/elizadaring · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

A Peace to End All Peace covers 1914 to 1922 in the Middle East.

u/RunShootDrink · 2 pointsr/battlefield_one

A Peace to End All Peace isn't directly about WWI, but it does a great job of explaining how the war and its aftermath led to the modern Middle East.

u/studdbeefpile · 2 pointsr/changemyview

You literally just described how the borders of the middle east were drawn after ww1. And I mean literally literally. How'd that work out?

u/mhk2192 · 2 pointsr/history

There's a book called: A Peace to end all Peace
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

It was a great book and helped me have a decent understanding of how the West screwed over rebelling Muslims during WWI which eventually led to the conflict we see today. It doesn't directly reference Hamas but it talks about why the Middle East is screwed up and tensions between the Jews and Arabs following WWI.

u/emp_omelettedufromag · 2 pointsr/worldnews

> to really understand what's going on today in the middle east, you pretty much have to go back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1, and then work your way forward from there

Absolutely. Actually one of my 2016 objectives was to gain a better understanding in Middle Eastern history which was something I really lacked. I am in no way an expert now but have a better idea on how everything unfolded post Ottoman Empire fall and I am genuinely disturbed at seeing how absolutely no one ever mentions any bit of relevant history in the media. The lack of any attempt at explanation is really bothering me :/

If you're interested, this book taught me a lot: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Lots of very interesting stories about how the Middle East was built post-Ottoman empire!

u/blackstar9000 · 1 pointr/BooksAMA

As far as I know, the book is still representative of the current state of scholarship concerning the period. It deals exclusively with the period between 1914 and 1922, which is, by this time, relatively declassified in terms of documentation, so I wouldn't expect another book to eclipse it any time soon, unless someone happens to write a better synthesis of the available material.

It looks like the publisher recently released a 20th anniversary edition with an afterword from the author. That wasn't the edition I read, but I would imagine Fromkin's afterword serves as an index of more recent developments in the study of that period.

As for follow-up reading, my plan is to go regional, with a string of books about the development of the nationalisms that got their start in that period. So, on the one hand, I want to start digging backwards into the Ottoman Empire prior to the Young Turk movement (which more or less starts APTEAP), and on the other, I'd like to examine the modern histories of Transjordan, early Jewish nationalism, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Before I get to all of that, though, I've got A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, which ought to keep me occupied for a while, once I start it.

u/eric_ts · 1 pointr/history

I recommend "Peace to end all Peace" By David Fromkin http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

u/this_guy_says · 1 pointr/worldnews

> Until the US overthrew Saddam and the Arab Spring, the region was generally stable. A hell of a lot more stable than ti is now

So in turn the US created a power vacuum... Instability in the Middle East has been the goal for over a century. Read something, like http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091


And what about the CIA's major role in overthrowing democratically elected politicians?

u/rodandanga · 1 pointr/CFBOffTopic

A Peace to end all Peace

It has been really good, I am glad I had a decent knowledge of the subject before starting it.

u/Mithras_Stoneborn · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

"A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" by David Fromkin is the book you are looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

u/michaelmalak · 0 pointsr/conspiracy

WWI smashed both Christendom (rule by Christian monarchs) across Europe, and the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. In its place were installed democracy (rule by puppets whose political campaigns were paid by the shadow elite) and dictatorship (rule by puppets installed by the military controlled by the shadow elite). Prior to WWI, the Christian and Muslim empires fought for territory but did not fight amongst themselves within their own territory. After WWI, the Middle East was divided and conquered, and European society was no longer Christian. The shadow elite was now able to enjoy power, wealth, and sex.

See http://www.amazon.com/1917-Red-Banners-White-Mantle/dp/0931888050 and http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091