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Margaret Macmillan
Peacemakers. The Paris Conference of 1919 and its Attempt to End War
London, John Murray 2001
This is not a book entirely on the Middle East. Part eight however – Setting the Middle East Alight – deals with the region in four chapters. This contextual view of the Middle East deepens the understanding of its modern history.
In a book rich in detail Macmillan shows how much western powers have contributed to indeed set the region alight in the long run. The latest episode of this impact was felt with the Anglo-American method of going to war against Iraq in 2003.
During a desperate period during the First World War in 1915/16, the western Allies of France and Great Britain made contradictory and unfulfillable promisses to a number of nations in Europe and the Middle East. Thus, the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration that have since shaped the region are among similar accords.
Besides this wider view there are dramatic anecdotes. For example, there is the story about how Feisal, the most senior Arab representative at the conference, was laughed at by the Allies, how Lawrence T.E. of Arabia burst into fury in response to Lloyd George and Clemenceau, how the Italians were eager to occupy the habours of Accre and Haifa in Palestine but never did, or how Balfour completely ignored Arab reactions when he revisited the region in 1925.
Macmillian's style is easy to digest, a scholarly work that could be appreciated by both an academic and a popular readership.
Carl Sunbourg
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