A Peace to End All Peace

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin tells the story of how the modern Middle East was created. The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts― including hostilities between Arabs and Israelis and the violent challenges posed by Iraq's competing sects― are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War. Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914-1922―when all seemed possible―he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time.