Reading Roadmap: The Making of the Modern Middle East

Opinions are like buttholes; everyone has them and they all stink, unless you take proper precautions. Below we’ve pulled together a reading list about the Middle East. This roadmap traces the region’s transformation from the late Ottoman Empire through colonial partition, nationalism, oil, and modern conflict.
Each stage mixes 🔵 traditional, 🔴 postcolonial, and ⚪ centrist voices so you can see history from multiple angles.

How to Read This List

You can move chronologically—or pick one title from each stage to build a panoramic view.
Pair authors with contrasting leanings to see how interpretation shapes history:

  • 🔵 Bernard Lewis ↔ 🔴 Rashid Khalidi → Western vs. postcolonial lenses

  • ⚪ Naomi Shepherd ↔ ⚪ James Barr → Bureaucratic ground vs. high diplomacy

  • ⚪ Eugene Rogan ↔ ⚪ Daniel Yergin → Arab experience vs. global systems

We recommend starting with the Core Canon - and PARTICULARLY the Fromkin work.

Core Canon: The foundations

We recommend starting here… but these books are also covered in the chronological below… again we recommend starting here and definitely reading the first one!

  1. ⚪ David Fromkin – A Peace to End All Peace
    The single most important narrative of how European powers invented the modern Middle East from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

  2. ⚪Eugene Rogan – The Arabs: A History
    A sweeping, accessible survey of Arab politics and society from the 19th century through the Arab Spring.

  3. ⚪ Albert Hourani – A History of the Arab Peoples
    Elegant synthesis of Arab cultural, intellectual, and political life across two centuries.

  4. 🔵Bernard Lewis – What Went Wrong? and The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
    Foundational but controversial works from the leading Western traditionalist historian of the region.
    Read critically and in conversation with Khalidi or Rogan for balance.

  5. 🔴 Rashid Khalidi – The Iron Cage
    A deeply researched account of why Palestinian statehood has remained elusive.
    Read critically and in conversation with Lewis or Rogan for balance.

Imperial Legacies and the Fall of the Ottomans (1880s-1920s)

Start here to understand how everything begins with imperial collapse and European partitioning.

  1. ⚪ Eugene Rogan – The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1920
    Military and political unraveling of the Ottoman Empire during WWI.

  2. ⚪David Fromkin – A Peace to End All Peace
     The single most important narrative of how European powers invented the new Middle East.

  3. ⚪ James Barr – A Line in the Sand
    Britain vs. France after the war—shows how personal rivalries and power politics hardened into borders.

  4. 🔴Naomi Shepherd – Ploughing Sand: British Rule in Palestine, 1917–1948
    The bureaucratic, human-scale story of empire and its contradictions.

The Birth of Arab States and Nationalism (1920s–1960s)

Understand how Arabs responded to colonial rule and the rise of nationalism.

  1. ⚪Albert Hourani – A History of the Arab Peoples
    Elegant synthesis of Arab society, culture, and political thought.

  2. ⚪ Eugene Rogan – The Arabs: A History
    Broader, updated survey that carries Hourani’s themes through to the Arab Spring.

  3. 🔴Rashid Khalidi – Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East
    Traces how postcolonial independence still bore the mark of imperial structures.

Israel, Palestine, and the Arab–Israeli Conflict (1948–Present)

This conflict anchors much of the region’s modern history.

  1. 🔴Rashid Khalidi – The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood
    Explains how Palestinian leadership, colonial powers, and geopolitics created stalemate.

  2. 🔵Benny Morris – 1948: A History of the First Arab–Israeli War
    Ground-level military and political history from an Israeli “new historian.”

Oil, the Cold War, and the Struggle for Modernity (1940s–1980s)

  1. ⚪Daniel Yergin – The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
    How oil reshaped regional and global power.

  2. 🔵Bernard Lewis – The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
    Traditional Western synthesis—important for understanding the “decline” narrative.

  3. 🔵 Bernard Lewis – What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
    Influential but controversial—read critically, then balance with Khalidi or Rogan.

Religion, Revolution, and the Rise of Political Islam (1970s–2000s)

  1. ⚪Vali Nasr – The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
    The Sunni–Shia dimension of regional politics.

  2. 🔴Gilles Kepel – Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam
    Comprehensive history of Islamist movements from Egypt to al-Qaeda.

  3. ⚪ Saïd Amir Arjomand – The Turban for the Crown
    Deep dive into Iran’s 1979 revolution.

The U.S., 9/11, and the Twenty-First Century Middle East (2000s–Present)

  1. ⚪Lawrence Wright – The Looming Tower
    Narrative of the rise of al-Qaeda and 9/11.

  2. ⚪ Dexter Filkins – The Forever War
    Gripping reportage from Iraq and Afghanistan.

  3. 🔴Fawaz Gerges – Obama and the Middle East: The End of America’s Moment?
    How U.S. influence began to wane.

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