The Ottoman endgame : war, revolution, and the making of the modern Middle East, 1908-1923

The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. McMeekin also brilliantly reconceives our inherited Anglo-French understanding of the war's outcome and the collapse of the empire that followed. The book chronicles the emergence of modern Turkey and the carve-up of the rest of the Ottoman Empire as it has never been told before, offering a new perspective on such issues as the ethno-religious bloodletting and forced population transfers which attended the breakup of empire, the Balfour Declaration, the toppling of the caliphate, and the partition of Iraq and Syria--bringing the contemporary consequences into clear focus. Every so often, a work of history completely reshapes our understanding of a subject of enormous historical and contemporary importance.The Ottoman Endgameis such a book, an instantly definitive and thrilling example of narrative history as high art.