Empires of the Sand
The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1923
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- 33,99 €
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- 33,99 €
Publisher Description
Empires of the Sand offers a bold and comprehensive reinterpretation of the struggle for mastery in the Middle East during the long nineteenth century (1789-1923). This book denies primacy to Western imperialism in the restructuring of the region and attributes equal responsibility to regional powers. Rejecting the view of modern Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, the authors argue that the main impetus for the developments of this momentous period came from the local actors.
Ottoman and Western imperial powers alike are implicated in a delicate balancing act of manipulation and intrigue in which they sought to exploit regional and world affairs to their greatest advantage. Backed by a wealth of archival sources, the authors refute the standard belief that Europe was responsible for the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the region’s political unity. Instead, they show how the Hashemites played a decisive role in shaping present Middle Eastern boundaries and in hastening the collapse of Ottoman rule. Similarly, local states and regimes had few qualms about seeking support and protection from the “infidel” powers they had vilified whenever their interests so required.
Karsh and Karsh see a pattern of pragmatic cooperation and conflict between the Middle East and the West during the past two centuries, rather than a “clash of civilizations.” Such a vision affords daringly new ways of viewing the Middle East’s past as well as its volatile present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This survey of the demise of the Ottoman Empire reeks of academic turf wars. In assessing the last 130-odd years of the Turkish empire, the authors assault the prevailing wisdom that the decline of the "Sick Man of Europe" was inevitable; they claim, rather, that it resulted from a series of poor choices made by its leaders. This approach is both provocative and productive, as the authors, relying on an impressive array of archival and secondary sources, demonstrate how the Ottoman leaders sealed their own fate--their decision to play cat-and-mouse with both sides during WWI was only the final error in a series of blunders. The two London-based scholars also debunk the myth of early Arab nationalism and show that, as the empire was being divvied up after the war, Arab leaders grabbed whatever land they could get in search of personal gain. But the authors' relentlessly negative depictions of the motivations of Turkish and Arab leaders--"Greed rather than necessity drove the Ottoman Empire into the First World War," for example--in contrast to the nonjudgmental ways in which they describe Western leaders seem to derive from an anti-Eastern animus. Indeed, this apparent bias undermines their plausible argument that "there has been no `clash of civilizations' between the Middle East and the West in the past two centuries, but rather a pattern of pragmatic cooperation and conflict," and prevents this otherwise comprehensive text from being a much more useful source.
