Worldmaking in the Long Great War : How Local and Colonial Struggles Shaped the Modern Middle East

Winner, 2023 Robert L. Jervis and Paul W. Schroeder Best Book Award, International History and Politics Section, American Political Science Association Honorable Mention, 2023 Barrington Moore Award, Comparative and Historical Sociology Section, American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2023 Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations, Historical International Relations Section, International Studies Association It is widely believed that the political problems of the Middle East date back to the era of World War I, when European colonial powers unilaterally imposed artificial borders on the post-Ottoman world in postwar agreements. This book offers a new account of how the Great War unmade and then remade the political order of the region. Ranging from Morocco to Iran and spanning the eve of the Great War into the 1930s, it demonstrates that the modern Middle East was shaped through complex and violent power struggles among local and international actors. Jonathan Wyrtzen shows how the cataclysm of the war opened new possibilities for both European and local actors to reimagine post-Ottoman futures. After the 1914-1918 phase of the war, violent conflicts between competing political visions continued across the region. In these extended struggles, the greater Middle East was reforged. Wyrtzen emphasizes the intersections of local and colonial projects and the entwined processes through which states were made, identities transformed, and boundaries drawn. This book's vast scope encompasses successful state-building projects such as the Turkish Republic and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as short-lived political units--including the Rif Republic in Morocco, the Sanusi state in eastern Libya, a Greater Syria, and attempted Kurdish states--that nonetheless left traces on the map of the region. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Worldmaking in the Long Great War retells the origin story of the modern Middle East. "How did the postwar political order in the Middle East and North Africa come to be defined? While it is commonly argued that this order came about due to British and French forces imposing a series of artificial boundaries they negotiated in wartime and postwar agreements, Wyrtzen adds that it was also a result of complex and violent struggles among various colonial and local forces reimagining what the political space in the post-Ottoman, post-WWI MENA region should look like. Reimagining the Middle East provides a history of revolts that occurred in the 1920s across North Africa and the Middle East in the aftermath of the postwar "peace settlement" brokered in Paris. Wyrtzen's scope includes major political and military mobilizations to create or defend a local defined political order using examples from the Rif Republic in Morocco, the Sanusi State in the northern part of Libya, the Syrian Revolt, the Kurdish Revolts in the Zagros Mountains, to the state forming movements in the Arabian Peninsula. The reality was that the boundaries and distribution of control the treaties outlined by the British and the French bore little resemblance to realities on the ground. This gap only grew over subsequent years as various groups forced dramatic renegotiations. Some units that emerged like the Turkish Republic and the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia were successful in the long-term. Others like the Kingdom of the Hejaz, the Rif Republic, the Kingdom of Kurdistan, the Ararat Republic, or the Sanusi state were not. But, these political entities that eventually failed also profoundly influenced how the postwar map was defined. This book provides a fresh alternative look at the creation of the twentieth-century world order and is a notable contribution to the fields of Middle East history and international affairs"-- Provided by publisher It is widely believed that the political problems of the Middle East date back to the era of World War I, when European colonial powers unilaterally imposed artificial borders on the post-Ottoman world in postwar agreements. This book offers a new account of how the Great War unmade and then remade the political order of the region. Ranging from Morocco to Iran and spanning the eve of the Great War into the 1930s, it demonstrates that the modern Middle East was shaped through complex and violent power struggles among local and international actors. Jonathan Wyrtzen shows how the cataclysm of the war opened new possibilities for both European and local actors to reimagine post-Ottoman futures. After the 1914-1918 phase of the war, violent conflicts between competing political visions continued across the region. In these extended struggles, the greater Middle East was reforged. Wyrtzen emphasizes the intersections of local and colonial projects and the entwined processes through which states were made, identities transformed, and boundaries drawn. This book's vast scope encompasses successful state-building projects such as the Turkish Republic and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as short-lived political units, including the Rif Republic in Morocco, the Sanusi state in eastern Libya, a Greater Syria, and attempted Kurdish states, that nonetheless left traces on the map of the region. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Worldmaking in the Long Great War retells the origin story of the modern Middle East **Winner, 2023 Robert L. Jervis and Paul W. Schroeder Best Book Award, International History and Politics Section, American Political Science Association****Honorable Mention, 2023 Barrington Moore Award, Comparative and Historical Sociology Section, American Sociological Association****Honorable Mention, 2023 Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations, Historical International Relations Section, International Studies Association**__Worldmaking in the Long Great War__ This book offers a new account of how the Great War unmade and then remade the political order of the Middle East. Ranging from Morocco to Iran and spanning the eve of the war into the 1930s, it demonstrates that the modern Middle East was shaped through complex and violent power struggles among local and international actors.