An unbelievably informative book about the transformation of the Ottoman Empire through World War I into the colonial prizes carved up by Western Europe into the countries that now form the modern Middle East. It is full of the origins of today’s conflicts and differences between Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Syria, and Iraq and is filled with characters whose names are famous, but whose activities during this time period I knew nothing about, e.g., Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia, the House of Saud (to become today’s rulers of Saudi Arabia), and King Abdullah, whose descendants still rule Jordan.