False Prophets

British Leaders' Fateful Fascination with the Middle East from Suez to Syria

False Prophets
Nigel Ashton
RRP:
NZ$ 45.00
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NZ$ 36.00
Hardback
h234 x 153mm - 480pg
3 Mar 2022 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9781786493255
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Britain shaped the modern Middle East through the lines that it drew in the sand after the First World War and through the League of Nation mandates over the fledgling states which followed. Since the Second World War, oil interests, Arab nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, militant Islam and the Anglo-American special relationship have all drawn Britain back into the Middle East. While Anthony Eden and Tony Blair are the two most prominent examples of prime ministers whose reputations have been ruined by their interventions in the region, they were not alone in taking significant risks in deploying British forces to the Middle East. The sense that Britain knew the region, understood its people and could help solve its problems, even if only for the reason that British imperialism had created the problems in the first place, was an unspoken assumption of successive prime ministers. One way or another, every post-war prime minister has entertained strong views about the Middle East and their actions have often compounded the very evils in the region they sought to combat. Drawing these threads together, Nigel Ashton explores the reasons why British leaders have been unable to resist returning to the mire of the Middle East, while highlighting the misconceptions about the region which have helped shape their interventions, and the legacy of history which has fuelled their pride and arrogance. It shows that their fears and insecurities have made them into false prophets who have conjured existential threats out of the Middle East.
A truly masterly book on a crucial running theme of British history since 1945. It is rich in scholarship, laced with insight and burnished with fluency. Nigel Ashton has a special feel for that fissile terrain where oil, sand, geopolitics and UK foreign policy meet. It is second only to the European Question as a wrecker of premierships and political reputations. False Prophets is a tour de force that will be read for a very long time. -- Peter Hennessy, author of WINDS OF CHANGE A fascinating and challenging insight into the twists and turns of Britain' s relationship with the Middle East. Prime ministers and their diplomatic advisers must understand this history if we are to get better at understanding this region in the future. -- Tom Fletcher, author of THE NAKED DIPLOMAT As Nigel Ashton details in his insightful book False Prophets, successive British prime ministers have been lured into the quick-sands of the Middle East by an exaggerated sense of the threat emanating from the region and by the desire to enhance the UK' s "special relationship" with the US. Too often, Britain' s over-estimation of its ability to control events led to interventions that proved detrimental to national interests and compounded the region' s problems. -- Emma Sky, author of THE UNRAVELLING A masterful new account of the perceptions and underlying motivations that swept a succession of British prime ministers into (often messy) entanglements in the Middle East, post-1955. Superbly researched and written with tempo, this is a brilliant book; one which will be enjoyed by professional historians and general readers alike - not least because the author has a special eye for those small yet revealing, sometimes ironic, often amusing, moments that history can so delightfully throw our way. -- Zeid Ra' ad Al Hussein, President and CEO of the International Peace Institute This is an outstanding book, combining a wide-ranging knowledge of the history of the Middle East and of successive prime ministers, interwoven with a vital understanding of Anglo-American relations. It is both stimulating and very well-written. -- Kathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History, University College London As if Anthony Eden' s tragic missteps over Suez in 1956 were not warning enough, this lively, sobering account shows how British prime ministers have continued to get drawn into Middle Eastern affairs, often at a high political cost and with little foreign policy gain. -- Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King' s College London Nigel Ashton' s fascinating, sweeping study, lively and detailed, is of all prime ministers trying to exert their personal authority in the Middle East and to sustain the idea of Britain as a world power. It is a history of ambitions, egos, imperiousness, interventions and often failure, with painful legacies, and it is written with an expert' s grasp. -- Dr James Ellison, Reader in History, Queen Mary, University of London
Nigel Ashton is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a specialist in the modern politics of the Middle East. He is the author of King Hussein of Jordan; Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War; and Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781786493255
Published: 3 Mar 2022
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Atlantic Books
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Format: Hardback
Height: 234mm
Width: 153mm
Spine: 34mm
Weight: 751g
Pages: 480

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