“Western Imperialism in the Middle East 1914-1958” is an historical academic book about imperialism in the Middle East. Fieldhouse wrote this book as a by- product of “Kurds, Arabs and Britons: The Memoir of Wallace Lyon in Iraq 1918-1944” as an act of family piety for his father-in-law, Fieldhouse although an “imperial historian knew little about the Middle East but in the process of writing the book became very fascinated by the Middle East imperialism” (Fieldhouse). This book focuses on the complexities of the Middle East before, during and after the rule by France and Britain. This is stated in the thesis of the book, “The aim of the book is to provide a comparative overview of how Britain and France came to rule these five portions of the Ottoman Empire and how they dealt with them.”(Fieldhouse). The events in five portions of the former Ottoman Empire; Jordan,…show more content… The author, however did not provide much evidence to show Ottoman revival, but did provide evidence of Ottoman decline, so I'm unsure why he would contradict himself twice, once going against his title and the second by providing evidence for the title while disproving his statement that the Ottomans were in a full revival. This was the only inconsistency I found since Fieldhouse seemed to say that the Ottoman Empire was on the decline but also was thriving at the same time. Part one of the book was a summary of all things that caused the decline of the Ottoman Empire but did also tell of the positive changes in the country like the growing education rates before collapse. Also part one explains why the Ottomans entered WW2 with the Germans because their main enemy was the Russians. Also the Germans had been investing a lot into the country since before the war. The chapter is also about how the Ottomans lost and in the end how the Empire was broken up
