A Century and a Bit of Bloodshed and Chaos
9th November 2026
The Middle East—widely, and perhaps a bit perversely, defined by historian Simon Sebag Montefiore as stretching from Morocco to Iran—underwent two major, historic social-geopolitical revolutions in less than a century, a unique feat in the modern age. First came decolonisation and the emergence of real or artificial nation-states amid the rubble left by the receding imperial powers: the Ottomans, the Italians, the French, and the British. Then, a few decades later, came the explosion of Islamism across the region, which the saner rulers of the Middle East are now battling, in their different ways. In surveying the years 1900–2026 in this vast geographical and political landscape, Montefiore acknowledges the Herculean nature of his labours. It is, he tells us, a “daunting task,” and I am not sure any historian could have done it better. He looks, often in great detail, at what transpired during these years in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt, in the Arabian Peninsula, and in the Middle Eastern heartland of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel-Palestine, as well as in Turkey and Iran. A daunting task, to be sure.