Whether they realise it or not, the militants of Islamic State know their Fromkin. Churchill, TE Lawrence and Lord Kitchener bestrode events and for the first time many readers met the irrepressible amateur Sir Mark Sykes, whose enthusiasm for the Middle East resembled that of Toad for the motorcar – and who, in conjunction with the French colonial officer Charles Georges-Picot, authored an infamous Anglo-French agreement to divide up the region. I n 1989, the American historian, lawyer and oenophile David Fromkin published A Peace to End All Peace, which showed how the Ottoman empire had spent the first world war fighting on several fronts before collapsing along with its German allies and bequeathing the modern Middle East.įromkin’s view was panoramic but anglocentric – hardly surprising given his heavy reliance on British sources and ignorance of Middle Eastern languages.
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