History of the Middle East

A History of the Middle East is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what is perhaps the most crucial and volatile nerve centre of the world, and its prospects for the future.

For more than four thousand years, the Middle East has provided a setting for titanic struggles between great civilizations and religions. In the previous century it became the focus of rivalry between the European powers as the last major Islamic empire of the Ottoman Turks crumbled and collapsed. The discovery of the world's greatest oil reserves gave the region global economic importance as well as a unique strategic value. The foundation of a national state by immigrant Zionist Jews created one of the most insoluble political problems of our era, which is compounded by the reassertion of Islamic consciousness among the great majority of the region's inhabitants.

In this masterly work, Peter Mansfield, drawing on his experience as a journalist and a historian, explores mainly the last two centuries of history in the Middle East. He forms a picture of the historical, political, and social history of the meeting point of Occident and Orient, from Bonaparte's marauding invasion of Egypt to the start of the Gulf War.  
Peter Mansfield died in 1996 and Penguin asked Nicolas Pelham to revise the book and update it with two extensive new chapters examining recent developments throughout the Middle East since the Gulf War, including the turbulent events in Afghanistan, the troubled relationship between the US and Iraq, the continuing Arab-Israeli war and the rise of Islamic Jihad.

Reisverhaal Midden-Oosten, politieke geschiedenis