The Ottoman Endgame

Where conventional histories of World War One focus on the trench warfare in the West, Sean McMeekin, combining ground breaking archival research with a genius for historical narrative, tells the story of the war in the East … There are many histories of World War One; few are as important or as readable as this one – Walter Russell Mead A well-timed, well-researched exploration of the empire whose dissolution continues to complicate making sense of the contemporary Middle East. Herein are explanations of how modern Turkey, Iraq, and Syria came to be, as well as how the division of the rest of the region affected its future. Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from reading it – Henry Kissinger Sean McMeekin has an infernal panorama to describe, as, over twelve years, the Ottoman Empire fell apart, giving us problems that have gone on to this day. The subject has found a writer with all the linguistic and scholarly qualifications to do it justice – Norman Stone Sean McMeekin’s The Ottoman Endgame pleases like a mouthful of Turkish delight, the flavors, scents and views of the old empire combining in a gripping new history that plunges the Turkish Empire into the Great War and locates Constantinople not at the edge of the conflict but at its very heart … a wry, delightful book, which fills in a neglected face of the war and traces the emergence of the modern Middle East – Geoffrey Wawro A tour de force – Philip Mansel

Sean McMeekin is Professor of History at Bard College, New York. For some years he taught at Bilkent University, Ankara. His books include the highly successful The Berlin-Baghdad Express, The Russian Origins of the First World War and The Ottoman Endgame.