The Middle East is constantly in the news and is a major focus for international conflict. This book attempts to explain why this is so. It covers the crucial period after 1914, when the Ottoman empire was defeated and its provinces taken over by Britain and France, ending in 1958, when the Iraqi revolution finally ended British influence in the region. It describes both British and French policies and the reactions of Arabs and Jews. - ;The term 'Fertile Crescent' is commonly used as shorthand for the group of territories extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Here it is assumed to consist of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine. Much has been written on the history of these countries which were taken from the Ottoman empire after 1918 and became Mandates under the League of Nations. For the most part the histories of these countries have been handled either individually or as part of the history. of Britain or France. In the first instance the emphasis has normally been on the development of nationalism and local resistance to alien control in a particular territory, leading to the modern successor state. In the second most studies have concentrated separately on how either France or Britain. handled the great problems they inherited, seldom comparing their strategies. The aim of this book is to see the region as a whole and from both the European and indigenous points of view. The central argument is that the mandate system failed in its stated purpose of establishing stable democratic states out of what had been provinces or parts of provinces within the Ottoman empire. Rather it generated basically unstable polities and, in the special case of Palestine, one totally unresolved, and possibly unsolvable, conflict. The result was to leave the Middle East as. perhaps the most volatile part of the world in the later twentieth

century and beyond. The main purpose of the book is to examine why this was so. - ;...the value of this work lies in its exceptional clarity amd the succinctness of its synthesis, which make it ideal for students and the uninitiated. The slim, but judiciously chosen, select bibliography and the detailed index add to its usefulness. - Jennifer M. Dueck, French Studies;Fieldhouse's strength lies in his detailed and extensive knowledge of British imperial and general history. - Jan Zouplna, Quarterly Journal of African and Asian Studies, vol 74;As one would expect from Fieldhouse, the style is brisk and efficient, the writing lucid and the substance fair-minded. In a subject of daunting complexity, and on which much that is written has a polemical purpose, even well-informed readers will find its balance and clarity exceptionally useful. - John Darwin, TLS;...a valuable point of access [and] extremely useful. - John Burman, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 17/1;...a sound history of the Fertile Crescent under mandate - The English Historical Review.