Western imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958

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Bibliographic Information

Western imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958

D.K. Fieldhouse

Oxford University Press, 2008

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Note

"First published 2006, First published in paperback 2008"--T.p. verso

Includes bibliographical references (p. [349]-357) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

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 essentially 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.

Table of Contents

  • PART I: BEFORE THE MANDATES 1900-1922
  • 1. The Decline of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and the 'Arab Awakening' before 1914
  • 2. War and the Partition of the Ottoman Empire 1914-1922
  • PART II: ALIEN RULE AND NATIONALIST REACTIONS 1918-1958
  • 3. Britain in Mesopotamia/Iraq 1918-1958
  • 4. Palestine: The Genesis of the Mandate
  • 5. Palestine: The British Mandate 1918-1948
  • 6. Transjordan 1918-1956
  • 7. Syria and the French 1918-1946
  • 8. Lebanon and the French 1918-1946
  • PART III
  • 9. Conclusions
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index

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