Fall of the Ottomans The

SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE BRITISH ARMY MILITARY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016Truly essential Simon Sebag MontefioreThe final destruction of the Ottoman Empire - one of the great epics of the First World War from bestselling historian Eugene RoganFor some four centuries the Ottoman Empire had been one of the most powerful states in Europe as well as ruler of the Middle East. By 1914 it had been drastically weakened and circled by numerous predators waiting to finish it off. Following the Ottoman decision to join the First World War on the side of the Central Powers the British French and Russians hatched a plan to finish the Ottomans off: an ambitious and unprecedented invasion of Gallipoli...Eugene Rogans remarkable book recreates one of the most important but poorly understood fronts of the First World War. Despite fighting back with great skill and ferocity against the Allied onslaught and humiliating the British both at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia (Iraq) the Ottomans were ultimately defeated clearing the way for the making for better or worse of a new Middle East which has endured to the present. Review Thrilling superb and colourful Eugene RogansFall of the Ottomans is brilliant storytelling. Filled with flamboyant characters impeccable scholarship that illuminates the neglected Near Eastern theater of WWI - showing how the Ottomans managed to perform unexpectedly well against the allies - and revelatory analysis that explains the modern MideastThe Fall of the Ottomans is truly essential but also truly exciting reading -- Simon Sebag MontefioreA vivid account of the fighting that led to the fall of one of the worlds great empires -- Roger Owen Professor Emeritus of Middle East History Harvard UniversityEugene Rogan has written a meticulously researched panoramic and engrossing history of the final years of the Ottoman Empire. This book is essential reading for understanding the evolution of the modern Middle East and the root causes of nearly all the conflicts that now plague the area. An altogether splendid work of historical writing -- Ali Allawi (author of The Occupation of Iraq)An excellent historian who does a fine job. Impressively sound and fair-minded -- Max Hastings ―Sunday TimesA timely and capacious history... compelling and brilliant -- Jeremy Seal ―Sunday TelegraphRemarkably readable judicious and well-researched -- Mark Mazower ―Financial TimesAbout the sad end of dreams of empire a subject that was not represented accurately in my high school textbooks back in Istanbul. -- Orhan Pamuk About the Author Eugene Rogan is author of the bestsellingThe Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East 1914-1920. He is professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford and Director of the Middle East Centre St Antonys College Oxford.