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Summary: Undoubtedly the Finest Introduction to Middle East History
Review: Who would have imagined that an Israeli historian would write the most balanced, insightful, and devastatingly candid account of the Middle East? In War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History, Oxford scholar Avi Shlaim offers us an unrivaled and incredibly enlightening introduction to the most volatile region on earth. Far too many myths and misapprehensions affect the ordinary American perception of the seemingly exotic and mysterious land of the Arabs. The troubling news coming from the region on a daily basis seems to almost always find a convenient explanation in the natural irrationality of the Arabs and the inherent militancy of Islam. However, such shallow attempts to rationalize what is clearly a far more complicated situation belie the glaring history of imperialism in the Middle East. Professor Shlaim makes it well understood that any honest inquiry into the Middle East necessitates a sober historical study of European and American imperial aspirations in the region.The timeline begins with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 and runs through the decisive transformations of power during World War I, the period of liberation and decolonization following World War II, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and up to the present, in which the U.S. ranks as the sole superpower and the greatest foreign influence in the Middle East. Shlaim insists that despite whatever injustices we might attribute to the Ottoman Sultans, at the very least we should concede that they provided a political system that actually worked for the varying peoples over which they ruled. The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France essentially replaced order with disorder. "It lies at the root of the countless political clashes, territorial disputes, struggles for national liberation, and interstate wars...the current conflicts between the Arabs and Israel, between Arabs and other Arabs, and between some Arabs and the West" (p. 18). By examining the Balfour Declaration (a notorious piece of political subterfuge thoroughly devoid of humanity at its core), we discover the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. By examining the policies behind Britain's ravenous greed for oil, we understand the origins behind the conflict between Iraq and Kuwait. And by examining the British and American support for brutal dictatorships throughout the Middle East, none of which enjoy even the slightest legitimacy with the people, we can explain the political injustice and massive human rights violations that Western champions of secular values so unthinkingly blame upon Arab and Islamic character. Professor Shlaim offers the masterful insights of an astute historian by pointing out the incompatibility between the traditional nomadic culture of the Arabs and the foreign imposition and alien psychology of the nation-state system by imperialist powers. Forcing the Arabs to follow the European model of governance was an immeasurably asinine policy, on par to forcing a fish to live on dry land. The destructive consequences of this policy were unforeseen at the time, though they have become painfully obvious ever since. Likewise, the British implemented an equally dim-sighted and bankrupt policy in carrying out the promises of the selfishly motivated Balfour Declaration, the underlying intention of which had little concern for Jewish welfare. Neither Lord Arthur Balfour nor Sir Winston Churchill had foreseen the disastrous consequences of forcing the future citizens of Israel to live on land expropriated from the Palestinians. Finally, he sheds light upon the American role in the Middle East. Essentially, the U.S. adopted Britain's role as the chief imperial power, wholly imbibing its colonial ambitions and cold, indifferent attitude towards the people of the region. Avi Shlaim has done us all a great favor by providing so many insights in so short a book. No other introduction to the Middle East compares to this extraordinary work. War and Peace in the Middle East is highly accessible and very simple to read, perfect for honest and objective students of history, and likely to be appreciated even by specialists in the field. For a more scholarly account, see David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East 1914-1922.
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