Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East

by Karl E. Meyer, Shareen Blair Brysac

Overview

A brilliant narrative history tracing today’s troubles back to the grandiose imperial overreach of Great Britain and the United States.

Kingmakers is the gripping story of how the modern Middle East came to be, as told through the lives of the Britons and Americans who shaped it. Some are famous (Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell); others infamous (Harry St. John Philby, father of Kim); some forgotten (Sir Mark Sykes, Israel’s godfather, and A. T. Wilson, the territorial creator of Iraq). All helped enthrone rulers in a region whose very name is an Anglo-American invention. The aim of this engrossing character-driven narrative is to restore to life the colorful figures who gave us the Middle East in which Americans are enmeshed today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393337709
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/12/2009
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Shareen Blair Brysac, formerly a prize-winning documentary producer at CBS News, is the author of Resisting Hitler and co-author of Tournament of Shadows and Kingmakers with Karl E. Meyer. The couple lives in New York and Weston, Connecticut.

Karl E. Meyer has written extensively on foreign affairs as a staff member of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations 9

Map of the Middle East 10

Authors' Note 13

Prologue The Ever-Growing Egg 17

1 The Proconsul Lord Cromer 29

2 The Empire's Power Couple Dame Flora Shaw Lord Frederick Lugard 59

3 "Dr. Weizmann, It's a Boy!" Sir Mark Sykes 94

4 The Acolyte A. T. Wilson 127

5 "Dreadfully Occupied in Making Kings Governments" Gertrude Bell 157

6 The Frenzy of Renown T. E.Lawrence 193

7 The Apostate H. S. J. B. Philby 226

8 "A Splendid Little Army" Glubb Pasha 259

9 A Very British Coup General Ironside and the Three Percys Sirs Cox Sykes Loraine 293

10 The Quiet American Kermit Roosevelt 322

11 The Apprentice Sorcerer Miles Copeland 348

12 The Man Who Knew Too Much Paul Wolfowitz 381

Epilogue Echoes in a Long Corridor 411

Selective Chronology 425

Acknowledgments 431

Illustration Credits 435

Notes 437

Bibliography 467

Index 485

Editorial Reviews

Beautifully written and researched.

Washington Post

The story resonates with excitement . . . a first-class, always engrossing account of events. . . . A most necessary and rewarding book, and a primer on what not to do in the Middle East.

ForeWord