Out of the ones that were written in English, this is the single best book I've read on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire so far. McMeekin's writing is intriguing, his method is meticulous, his scope is vast.

What he's doing isn't exactly new, but he's doing it just right: He's reframing the 'solution' to the Eastern Question as 'the War of the Ottoman Succession', and retelling the story of the last 15 years of the Ottoman Empire in the vast context of the dissolution of an empire, taking into consideration the stances of every player and focusing on the most important turning points.

This isn't the story of Modern Turkey, this isn't the story of the Kemalist revolution, this is quite literally the 'Ottoman Endgame'. McMeekin isn't interested in the dynamics of the Kemalist revolution, he's merely putting it into the correct context within the scope of his work. In framing the happenings of the era as the War of the Ottoman Succession and focusing on each country's efforts to benefit from it to the fullest, McMeekin enables himself to tell a truer history of the region, placing the Ottoman collapse and the creation of modern Turkey at a central position in the making of the modern Middle East, while still including the perspectives of the British, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Greeks and the Arabs. This allows him to conclude that Mustafa Kemal's national revolution was in and of itself the Turkish solution to the War of the Ottoman Succession and it succeeded tremendously.

It's not a complete history, it's doubtlessly not without fault, but McMeekin's background and unique skillset seem to have given him the opportunity to tell the story of the last 15 years of the Ottoman Empire with a unique scope and a soulful narrative, baring the essential facts to the keen eye.

As far as I'm concerned, this is essential reading for any Westerner who's interested in early 20th century Turkey.