KINGMAKERS: The Invention of the Modern Middle East

An international cast of ham-handed spies, visionaries, con men, do gooders, villains, dotty eccentrics and avaricious imperialists who created the modern Middle East. 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, 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); some controversial (the CIA's Miles Copeland and the Pentagon's Paul Wolfowitz). All helped enthrone rulers in a region whose very name is an Anglo-American invention and they include Lord Cromer, Sir Mark Sykes, Glubb Pasha, General Ironside, Kermit Roosevely, and Miles Copeland, the apprentice sorcerer. As a bonus, we meet the British Empire's power couple, Lord Frederick Lugard and Lady Lugard (Dame Flora Shaw): she named Nigeria, he ruled it; she used the power of the Times of London to attempt a regime change in the gold-rich Transvaal. The narrative is character-driven, and the aim is to restore to life the colourful figures who for good or ill gave us the Middle East in which Americans are enmeshed today. Beautifully written and researched. Well illustrated, 512 US desirable roughcut pages.