Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. He is the author of July 1914: Countdown to War, which was reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review; The Russian Origins of the First World War, which won the Norman B. Tomlinson Jr. Book Prize and was nominated for the Lionel Gelber Prize; and The Berlin to Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, 1898-1918, which won the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize; among other books. He previously taught at Koc University, Istanbul; Bilkent University, Ankara; and Yale University.
"A sweeping account...The most original and passionately written
parts concern the fight between Russians and Turks in eastern
Anatolia and the Caucasus. Two things distinguish Mr. McMeekin from
many other writers in English about this period. First, he has a
deep empathy with Turkish concerns, and he hews closer to the
official Turkish line than to the revisionist, self-critical
approach taken by some courageous Turkish liberals. Second, he has
some unusual insights into imperial Russian thinking, based on
study of the tsarist archives...[Mr. McMeekin] brings some useful
correctives into focus."--The Economist
"Using previously unknown sources from Ottoman and Russian
archives, [McMeekin] denounces the notion that the Middle East as
we know it today is a legacy of World War I and Anglo-French
decisions in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. He argues that
events far richer and more intricate caused the end of the
empire...[A] valuable academic work."--Library Journal
"Magisterial...Giving events in the Ottoman theater the same
attention to detail usually reserved for the Western front,
McMeekin argues that principals on all sides were stymied by myopic
preconceptions as the war gained steam, with movements on the
ground easily overcoming any pretense of rational
planning...McMeekin's gripping narrative style and literary panache
make this work an attractive resource for anyone looking to further
understand the destruction and dislocation in Asia Minor that
ushered in the modern age."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Thought-provoking...McMeekin observes early on that there's much
more to [the] story than the smoothly duplicitous diplomacy that
makes up the last hour of Lawrence of Arabia and much more than
T.E. Lawrence himself...Thriving on untold stories, McMeekin looks
at the punctuated collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe
and its momentary successes following the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia, which had the effect of exposing rivalries between the
Ottomans and their German allies that almost resulted in war on yet
another front. The author also gives a lucid account of the geneses
of secular governments in what became Turkey and those of more
theocratically or autocratically inclined ones in the neighboring
former provinces...Vigorous and accessible." --Kirkus "A
well-timed, well-researched exploration of the empire whose
dissolution continues to complicate making sense of the
contemporary Middle East. Herein are explanations of how modern
Turkey, Iraq, and Syria came to be, as well as how the division of
the rest of the region affected its future. Scholars and
practitioners alike will benefit from reading it."-Henry
Kissinger
"Where conventional histories of World War One focus on the trench
warfare in the West, Sean McMeekin, combining ground breaking
archival research with a genius for historical narrative, tells the
story of the war in the East. From the Bolshevik Revolution to the
Armenian Genocide, McMeekin weaves the dramatic and world shaking
events of one of history's greatest conflicts into a compelling and
original story. As characters like Leon Trotsky, Kemal Ataturk and
Winston Churchill stride -- or in some cases, slink -- across these
pages, readers will see some of history's most important events
from a fresh perspective. There are many histories of World War
One; few are as important or as readable as this one."-Walter
Russell Mead
"Sean McMeekin's The Ottoman Endgame pleases like a mouthful of
Turkish delight, the flavors, scents and views of the old empire
combining in a gripping new history that plunges the Turkish Empire
into the Great War and locates Constantinople not at the edge of
the conflict but at its very heart. McMeekin pulls all of the
familiar but disconnected threads together in a stunningly original
way: the Young Turks, the Balkan Wars, the German alliance,
Gallipoli, Iraq, the vast, forgotten battles with the Russians in
the snowy Caucasus, the Armenian genocide, the naval struggle on
the Black Sea, and the frothy legend of Lawrence of Arabia. The
crucial influence of these far-reaching Turkish campaigns on World
War I and its aftermath emerges in McMeekin's wry, delightful book,
which fills in a neglected face of the war and traces the emergence
of the modern Middle East." -Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad
Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the
Habsburg Empire and Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the
Middle East
"A real feat of historical scholarship, offering genuinely new
interpretations and fresh insights into the origins of the modern
Middle East."-Roger Crowley, author of 1453: The Holy War for
Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West
"McMeekin synthesizes an impressive amount of fresh material from
across Europe's archives in this balanced and perceptive analysis
of the twelve-year War of Ottoman Succession, between 1911, and
1923, that ended an empire after six centuries; redrew the map and
reshaped the culture of the Middle East; and almost tangentially
played a crucial role in the outbreak of World War I and the peace
that--temporarily--concluded it."-Dennis Showalter, professor of
history, Colorado College
"Sean McMeekin has an infernal panorama to describe, as, over
twelve years, the Ottoman Empire fell apart, giving us problems
that have gone on to this day. The subject has found a writer with
all the linguistic and scholarly qualifications to do it
justice."-Norman Stone, author of Turkey: A Short History
"A tour de force. Using an unprecedented array of new
sources--German, Russian, Turkish, French and British--Sean
McMeekin not only describes a key aspect of the First World War but
also provides a key to the tragedy of the Middle East
today."-Philip Mansel, author of Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe
on the Mediterranean
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