Rating: 
Summary: Well written and Researched but . . .
Review: Fromkin has done an excellent job researching his topic and he does an even better job of writing. The book is very interesting and well written. I would recommend it to anyone interested in reading on the topic of The Middle East.On the other hand, as the title implies Fromkin tells us that the problem today in the Middle East is based in the West nearly a hundred years ago. He details very well the inept and often corrupt dealings of the colonial powers but he stops there. The problems with the clan fighting etc did not start in the early 20th century nor are they solely to blame by the "Peace to End All Peace". The book is well researched and written better. I recommend it to anyone interested in Middle Easter Affairs especially those who tend to agree with the assumption indicated in the title.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Reality Check for the 21st Century
Review: A facinating look at how good intentions go awry. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Europe (mainly Britian and France) decide to break the non-Turkish part of that empire (known as "Arabia") into several states. They tried to mold them along the lines of western goverments in the hope that would bring the area into the 20th Century. It didn't work out well and Fromkin does an excellent job of explaining why. This book is highly recommended for these uncertain times (written on the eve of a possible was with Iraq - March 2003).
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Summary: The more things change
Review: Like the other reviewers here, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the modern Middle East. Fromkin takes a series of complicated and diverse events during and after WWI and creates a nicely readable narrative about the creation of the modern Middle East, though you can get lost at times in all the different actors and places if they are not already familiar to you. I especially enjoyed some of the new perspectives on well-known people and events such as T.E. "Lawrence of Arabia", Churchill, Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Gallipoli. The misunderstandings and rivalries which charactarized relations between the Western powers and the Arab world during this period, and among the Western powers themselves, seem very similar to some of the things going on today.
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Summary: Deceit in the Desert
Review: This is a gripping account of Britain's misadventures in the Middle East from about 1908 to 1922, with a wonderful rogue's gallery of characters--ambitioius, treacherous, arrogant, and frequently clueless. Nearly every chapter chronicles furious backstabbing, squandered opportunities, catastrophic misjudgements. What the book does best is to reveal the rivalries within the British government over its objectives in the Middle East. During the Great Game period, the conflict had essentially been between Tories, who feared Russian encroachment on India, and Liberals, who, however much they despised the Czarist regime, still saw the Russians as champions of the oppressed Christian nations of the Balkans. Then in 1907 Russia abruptly became an ally--thanks to the more pressing threat posed by Germany. When World War I began, Britain had to rethink its relationship w/ its traditional (albeit odious) ally the Ottoman Empire, and then, once the Young Turks committed to Germany, with the subject peoples within the Turkish empire.
The basic conflict w/in His Majesty's Govt., as Fromkin tells it, was between the Arabists of Cairo, who hoped to create a pan-Arab state under Sharif Hussein, but run largely by and for Britain, and the Govt. of India, which wanted British control only of southern Mesopotamia (Iraq) and were wary of the grandiose schemes of the Egyptian administrators, proteges of Kitchner. These latter wanted to name Hussein the new Caliph, imagining the office to be similar to that of the Pope. But there was no separation of Church and State in the Isalmic world, and for Hussein, to be Caliph was to be Emperor. Commitments to the Zionists and to the French famously conflicted with each other and with deliberately vague promises that were made to the Arabs, and Fromkin sorts these out in some detail.
Among the things the book does well is to demystify the "Arab Revolt" during WW I, to exculpate Churchill for the Gallipoli fiasco, and to untangle the ambitions and animosties of all the parties negotiating the fate of the Middle East at Versailles and San Remo. (Passions were heated: the U.S. and Italy nearly went to war over Anatolia.) The moral: you generally wind up respecting your enemies but despising your allies. The duplicity of the Turks and Germans toward each other easily matched that of the ex-Allies.
This book is based primarily on secondary sources and published memoirs in English. Unfortunately, the references on WW I, Zionism, and some other peripheral subjects don't inspire a lot of confidence; but there are no egregious errors. Fromkin relies heavily on Kedourie and Gilbert in the first half of the book, which is all to the good. He seems to believe Churchill is the central character. It's actually Mark Sykes in the first half, naively trusting one and all and believing all commitments could be reconciled, and the wily Lloyd George in the second half--Little-Englander-turned-Imperialist, pro-Greek, pro-Zionist, and anti-French, and rapidly running out of time and money. Fromkin has a few idee fixes that are not supported by the evidence--i.e., that the British believed that the Young Turks were being run by Jews. But generally this is a fascinating survey and a great read. Some bitter ironies.
Rating:
Summary: an essential backgrounder to the present
Review: I read this book as part of preparation to teach a class on the "turn of the century". I was already somewhat familiar with the events that lead up to the creation of the modern Middle East, but I have never previously found such a concise yet multi-faceted review of the critical thirty years at the begiining of the 20th Century that literally set the stage for many of the traumas that we are currently facing. What I most appreciate about Fromkin's writing is that he largely avoids lumping people and peoples together into homogenous monoblocks, thus, rather than simply talking about "the British" he acknowledges that there were many sides to British (or French or Arab or Turkish etc.) interests in the mid-east, and that quite often these sides undermined each other, failed to communicate, or simply ignored the "facts on the ground". The tensions between and differing aims of the Vice-regal government in India and Parliament in London have often been left out of policy discussions, and Fromkin does us a service by reminding us of the somewhat haphazard nature of the British Empire even at its moment of triumph. While this is not the ONLY book one should read on this crucial period in history (I agree with the reviewer who suggests greater attention to Turkish sources) this is a great starting place, and you will find many of the dilemmas that are facing governments in London and Washington in 2002 frighteningly similar to dilemmas facing London, Paris, and Delhi in 1918. Would that one felt that our leaders today were reading books like this. ...
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Summary: The best book I ever read
Review: I read this 10 years ago or so. It's so well written & researched, and provided me with details about how history gets made -- self-interested political decisions, blunders, manipulation of less sophisticated cultures -- if I were teaching history I would have this as required reading. I have to say that Fromkin came through as a possibly a Zionist, but he didn't hesitate to portray the Israeli govt negatively if it was called for.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent study & a very appropriate title !
Review: This is a first class, detailed analysis of how the Middle East as we know it today was formed. I would highly recommend that this book is read together with Efraim Karsh's "Empires Of The Sands; The Struggle For Mastery Of the Mid-East, 1789 - 1923", for a thorough grounding in this subject. Recent events have shown that, whether we like it or not, matters pertaining to the region are going to affect us all in one way or another. With this in mind, it is disturbing that most people possess an overwhelming, innocent, ignorance or apathy in relation to the background of the region and the context of ongoing disputes and military struggles. This book provides an excellent public service in bringing essential information to the public's attention. Without books like this, such an ignorance of regional matters such as the Palestinian-Israeli issue and Islamic Fundamentalism can give rise to a distorted understanding of these matters, making the public at large so vulnerable to disinformation and propaganda. The author covers the hatreds, disputes, rivalries, vested self-interests and hidden agendas of those individuals and nations involved and responsible for carving out and mapping the region during the post First World War years. The decision making process is covered in detail with reference to recently opened archives of hitherto official secret documents and private papers. This is essential reading for an accurate comprehension of the region. Some matters will astound you, especially the level of appeasement shown by my own British Government towards the regions' Arabs and how the British, with a swipe of the pen, literally gave away the vast majority of land promised as a new Jewish state, to form the new country of Transjordan. Read on and digest. Once you have read this and the book outlined above by Efraim Karsh, might I respectfully recommend that you then proceed to read Joan Peter's remarkable account of the region entitled, "From Time Immemorial; The Origins Of The Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine". Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful history telling clad in fiction and sentiment
Review: David Fromkin's book flows like a river and makes easy reading. It is serious history writing in style. I have no definite objection to his facts and figures. I think they are well argued and pursuesive. I have a reservation as a Turk: He writes not from a platform of objectivity and detachment of a real historian but rather with a sentimentality and subjectivity of as an American and probably English person. Fine as long as he also admitted that he sought the views of no single Turkish historian during his writing. Overall the book should be standard reading for anyone, including professionals, interested in the present not only middle east but Europe as well.
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Summary: A truly amazing work
Review: With the current crisis in the mid-East, I've been trying to get more of a historical understanding. This book is excellent at providing the foundations of the dispute. Fromkin explains what the Ottoman Empire was and how the countries we now know and accept were, just 100 years ago, little more than descriptive terms for areas on a map. It's also fascinating to be reminded that just 100 years ago the British, French and Russians still lived with the mindset that they should control the areas of the middle east and that any "independence" need not be anything more than nominal. Of course, the book's most illustrative point is that the strategy of almost every player in the Mid-East, from the Brits, to the French, to the Arabs, was based on ignorance and arrogance.
Rating: 
Summary: But Only the SERIOUS Need Apply!
Review: A "Peace to End All Peace" is the story of the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire after its' defeat in WW 1. It traces the geographic origins of the "modern" Middle East. The author skillfully retells the dealings, double-dealings, betrayals, lies and shifting alliances in the key years of 1914-1922. Don't be deceived by the limited time span. It is amazing how much can happen in 8 very short years! The notes and bibliography encompass 51 pages!
"PTEAP" is told primarily from a British viewpoint. The reason is logical enough: England and Prime Minister Lloyd George held and dealt most of the cards in the endless game of building or at least maintaining Empires among the European powers; Britain, France, Italy and Greece. The reader can decide just how well or poorly the PM played-or overplayed- his hand. This Irish American reviewer will keep his opinions to himself. The PM was no friend of the Irish cause.And the author appears to be no friend of the PM! Fear of Russia, both before and after that nation's Revolution lurks in the background. Also in the background is an uninvolved and newly isolationist United States. Britain's fear of losing a land link to India is very much in the foreground. Britain's obsession with India is unexplored. Readers learn how countries are created virtually by geographic whim. The modern nations of Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and (basically) Iran are born. Puppet pro-British heads of state appear in Arabia, Iraq, Persia/Iran, and Jordan/ Transjordan -with varying degrees of "success". PTEAP' s time frame allows only for an excellent introduction but no resolution of a homeland for Jews in Palestine. The result is that PTEAP explores the bases for many of today's problems but does not explain or resolve them. This does not detract from the story's importance one bit. The foundations are laid in these pages.
PTEAP is highly challenging and highly rewarding. Its sheer length and breadth demands patience on the part of the serious reader, but the patience will be rewarded! There are two caveats: One is that the mere casual reader should skip PTEAP and select a less formidable book. The other involves the absolute requirement (!) for a World Atlas to appreciate the geographical scope of the story. As with most historical/military publications, the maps provided are of near total inadequacy. Why do editors permit this? For those two points, I deducted a star. We graver types can add the 5th star back. I hope this review has done justice and encouraged serious history fans to buy "A Peace to End All Peace". Just remember the Atlas!
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