Book Review: Modern Conflict in the Greater Middle East

Abstract

Modern Conflict in the Greater Middle East, edited by Spencer C. Tucker, dates modern conflicts between and among twenty-two countries from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1918 to when the book went to press in 2016, with no end in sight for the civil war in Syria, much less for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Linked by religious and cultural affinities, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the North African countries of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia are included as part of a lately considered greater Middle East, as are Cyprus, Iran, and Turkey. A brief overview of the historical events out of which the geopolitical greater Middle East emerged sets the stage for the seemingly intractable modern conflict of the volume’s title.