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A review by bupdaddy
The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908 - 1923 by Sean McMeekin
2.0
If you are looking for a book to introduce you to the Ottoman Empire, and its last days, because you've got a very America- and Euro-centric view of history and are trying to expand, PICK A DIFFERENT STARTER BOOK.
I'm not quite sure if this book is mediocre, good, or excellent. It presupposes familiarity with people I mostly didn't know, and geography I don't know like I should. Even a modern map isn't much help, because of the complexity of the old countries and boundaries.
What did I learn?
1. There was some guy named Abdul Hamid who was the last sultan.
2. Mustafa Kemal was huge.
3. I get a little bit why some guy getting assassinated in Sarajevo started a war. Not really - the causes of World War I are still a mess to me, but unrest in the Balkans made land that Germany, Russia, England and France wanted to fight over, in a general imperialist way. Why was there a western front, though? Why was there fighting all over the place, instead of just this region? I don't really get it.
4. There was fighting and unrest where Europe, Asia and Africa merge before, during, and after.
5. Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and was down in the Aegean and Black Seas even before WWI started, and was just itching to get in a fight.
It's a long book, though, told at a very thorough and detailed level. Told like someone describing a Monet painting a square inch at a time, without ever pulling back to show the view from 20 feet away.
Also, the book overuses the metaphor of the Ottoman Empire being a carcass to be carved up. Like 842 times I think. And relatedly (and I realize this is on me) I took the title to mean that the Ottoman Empire would come across as an actor in its own last years. Like in chess if I talked about Otto Mann's endgame I'd mean what moves Otto Mann made as the game wound down. In this book the Ottoman Empire comes across just as an object. A pawn, as it were.
I'm not quite sure if this book is mediocre, good, or excellent. It presupposes familiarity with people I mostly didn't know, and geography I don't know like I should. Even a modern map isn't much help, because of the complexity of the old countries and boundaries.
What did I learn?
1. There was some guy named Abdul Hamid who was the last sultan.
2. Mustafa Kemal was huge.
3. I get a little bit why some guy getting assassinated in Sarajevo started a war. Not really - the causes of World War I are still a mess to me, but unrest in the Balkans made land that Germany, Russia, England and France wanted to fight over, in a general imperialist way. Why was there a western front, though? Why was there fighting all over the place, instead of just this region? I don't really get it.
4. There was fighting and unrest where Europe, Asia and Africa merge before, during, and after.
5. Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and was down in the Aegean and Black Seas even before WWI started, and was just itching to get in a fight.
It's a long book, though, told at a very thorough and detailed level. Told like someone describing a Monet painting a square inch at a time, without ever pulling back to show the view from 20 feet away.
Also, the book overuses the metaphor of the Ottoman Empire being a carcass to be carved up. Like 842 times I think. And relatedly (and I realize this is on me) I took the title to mean that the Ottoman Empire would come across as an actor in its own last years. Like in chess if I talked about Otto Mann's endgame I'd mean what moves Otto Mann made as the game wound down. In this book the Ottoman Empire comes across just as an object. A pawn, as it were.