The First World War in the Middle East
By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen
London: Hurst & Company, 2014, 320 pages, £ 27.50, ISBN: 9781849042741
A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War
By Leila Tarazi Fawaz
Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2014, 416 pages, $ 35.00, ISBN: 9780674735491
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East
By Eugene Rogan
New York: Basic Books, 2016, 512 pages, $ 23.00, ISBN: 9780465097425
The Great War and the Middle East
By Rob Johnson
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 354 pages, £ 25, ISBN: 9780199683284
Inspired by the centenary of World War I (WWI), a plethora of history books have been released recently. This article reviews four of the latest studies on the Middle Eastern theater of WWI. Accelerating the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the paving way for the state system (notwithstanding under mandatory rule), WWI was essential to the formation of the modern Middle East. The legacies of WWI continue to be a source of contradictory interpretation and resentment in the Middle East.
