Rating: 
Summary: Puts the recent history of the Middle East in proper context
Review: The Karshes assess the history of the Middle East from the time of Napoleon through the end of the Ottoman Empire. And that means dealing with a couple of obvious potential forms of bias. First, the people in a nation often delude themselves into thinking that they can salvage something useful out of bad situations just by making the smartest choices. But that's not always the case: if one is outnumbered by hostile forces, one may lose a war no matter what one does. The second problem is the opposite one, where people who lose a war may conclude that they have been mere bystanders to their own history, and that they had no opportunities to improve their circumstances. Again, this is not always the case: one may get into a completely avoidable war and lose it.
Did any of this happen in the Middle East? The authors indicate that it did. In doing so, they show the amount of Arab disunity. This allowed small groups of fighters to appear to represent much larger populations. In some cases, these small groups were granted vast land holdings. In other cases, they simply got everyone in trouble by making any coherent unified policy impossible. Meanwhile, Middle Eastern leaders were anything but hapless bystanders to history but active schemers who often overestimated their military position. In addition, the discussion of the incredible mass slaughters of Armenians and Assyrians shows the extent to which Middle East despots misused their power. The Karshes explain how the Middle Eastern Jews narrowly avoided suffering a similar fate.
The authors make a number of very valuable points. First, while many people blame wars on nationalism, the truth is that imperialism has been the problem. The culprits have been those who demanded the right to subjugate others. When their neighbors tried to assert their rights as human beings, empires used threats, followed by force, to punish those who failed to be properly subservient. Second, Middle Eastern violence was not a European import. The forerunner of modern Middle Eastern violence is neither European nationalism nor European imperialism but Middle Eastern imperialism. Third, the interaction between Europeans and the Hashemites was not that of imperialists interacting with nationalists but of two imperialists interacting with each other, with the Hashemites demanding neither freedom nor self-determination but the rights to a successor Empire.
This book supplies excellent background to those who wish to trace the origins of today's Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: Vital First Step
Review: The Karshes' thesis in EMPIRES OF THE SAND is that modern Middle Eastern history is not merely one vast reaction on the part of local actors and institutions to "an externally imposed dictate", but, and more crucially, the aggregate result of sui generis forces and behaviours. The Karshes scrutinize the decline and break-up of the Ottoman empire from the time of Napoleon to the creation of Arab states after World War One. In so doing, they attempt to show how "Middle Eastern actors were not hapless victims of predatory imperial powers but active participants in the restructing of their region".
Topics discussed in the book include Napoleon's campaigns in the Middle East in the 18th century; Greek and Balkan nationalism; the haphazard European penetration of North Africa; Russia's perennial aims in the Balkans and the Turkish Straits; the Young Turk revolution and the Armenian genocide; the Ottoman decision to enter WWI and the so-called Arab revolt; the imperial ambitions of local Arab actors in the post-war period; and Zionism after the Balfour Declaration.
This book is a much-needed corrective to the reams of post-colonial literature which at once romanticize indigenous actors while also denying them recognition of the same human capabilites for action as Europeans -- in order, ironically, to keep them outside the moral equation of hindsight. The book is neither an exhaustive account, nor one that should be read in isolation to other literature on the topic with which it grapples; however, it stands as an absolutely vital first step towards a more subtle and less romantic understanding of modern Middle Eastern history. It should go a long way toward challenging conventional historiography.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This book does a lot to rectify the cult of victimization and anti-Arab conspiracy theories prevalent in analysies and histories of the Arab world. It should be read in conjunction with the works of Bernard Lewis, especially his short volumes The Arabs in History and Islam and the West.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding What Was, Is and Will Be
Review: This book. the first of the authors that I read had been recommnded in passing by The Wall Street Journal. I found it to be a remarkable work. It presents historical perspectives not to be found in other "mid-east" works. And it is remarkably well written. Unlike many fine histories it does not periodically lapse into obtuseness and vagueness. Furthermore, it has legs. It was the first history book that my wife read over the past ten years and she came away, altered in her perceptions as well as impressed. I then sent it to my so who is a distinguished Cardiac researcher who rarely these days can spare reading time away from material in his own speciality area. He too could not put it down. It is a pity that books such as this do not get the comprehensive audiences they deserve.
Rating: 
Summary: The making of the modern Middle East
Review: This is an excellent revisionist history of how the modern Middle East came into existence. It turns completely around the conventional theory that the Western countries were directly and solely responsible for what happened during and after World War I in the area of the Ottoman Empire. The authors place much of the blame for the results on the Ottoman leadership iteself, and the political land-grabbing of the Hashemite family. Not being an expert in this area, I have adopted a neutral attitude in this controversy, and am more than willing to read works that contradict this idea. My one quibble with this book, and it caused my rating to be lowered, is that there is an almost complete absence of adequate maps of the areas in question. To discuss places not normally familiar to Western readers, it is essential that works provide maps as references. I was continually frustrated throughout my reading when I couldn't find a map that showed a place that was under discussion in the text.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent foundation in Mid-East history.
Review: This is an excellent study by Efraim and Inari Karsh of the Middle East and it's political & military history, it's struggles and the agendas of those peoples and individuals involved. They have drawn on a considerable number of archival sources and constructed an extremely thorough and scholarly examination and evaluation of what is quite a complex regional history. ... Suffice to say, this is a detailed study and some of the issues are themselves quite complex, yet this book is a rewarding and educating read for those with an interest in the region, it's history and it's peoples. The book ably reveals how we have arrived at the 'all-too-tragic', 'all-too-familiar' politics of violence & frustration seen not only during the early 20th century, but also during the present day. I recommend this book be also read in conjunction with "A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" by David Fromkin AND "From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine" by Joan Peters. ...
| 
