War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History, Revised and Updated - Softcover

Focusing on the last half-century, this text illuminates the four phases of external involvement - Ottoman, European, superpower, and American - that have moulded the political evolution of the Middle East. It assesses the past roles of Britain, France and the former Soviet Union, clarifies how power and influence have shifted in the aftermath of the Cold War, and appraises both the recurrent myopia of the US and the country's essential function as a mediator.

Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad in 1945, grew up in Israel, and studied at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He is an emeritus fellow of St. Anthony's College and a former professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2006. His books include Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (winner of the Political Studies Association's 1988 WJM Mackenzie Book Prize); The Politics of Partition; War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History; and The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.