The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1919-1939

Not only does the Middle East include an unusually high number of countries that managed to avoid rule from Europe (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and North Yemen), but even those that fell under imperial power had to endure it for only a few decades. This was the last region to be colonized and the first to win independence. On the premise that the brief imperial era needs "yet another reappraisal," Dann brought twenty-eight historians and political scientists together in 1982. The result is a highly satisfactory survey of international politics during the two-decade heyday of imperial power in the Middle East. In part, the results are so good because of the consistently high quality of the authors (who include Elie Kedourie, Bernard Lewis, Barry Rubin, and Jehuda L. Wallach); in part, because the authors have access to the British, French, German, Italian, and Israeli archives. The relative paucity of Arab sources prompts one question: is the external history of the Middle East fated always to be better understood than the internal history?