False Prophets (british Leaders' Fateful Fascination With The Middle East From Suez To Syria)

By (author) Ashton, Nigel
Short description/annotation
An engaging and incisive history of British prime ministers'' post-war entanglements in the Middle East, from Anthony Eden in Egypt to David Cameron in Syria.
Description

''Fascinating'' Guardian, ''Book of the Day''

''A truly masterly book... A tour de force that will be read for a very long time.'' Peter Hennessy

Selected by the New Statesman as an essential read for 2022

Britain shaped the modern Middle East through the lines that it drew in the sand after the First World War and through the League of Nations mandates over the fledgling states that followed. Less than forty years later, the Suez crisis dealt a fatal blow to Britain''s standing in the Middle East and is often represented as the final throes of British imperialism. However, as this insightful and compelling new book reveals, successive prime ministers have all sought to extend British influence in the Middle East and their actions have often led to a disastrous outcome.

While Anthony Eden and Tony Blair are the two most prominent examples of prime ministers whose reputations have been ruined by their interventions in the region, they were not alone in taking significant risks in deploying British forces to the Middle East. There was an unspoken assumption that Britain could help solve its problems, even if only for the reason that British imperialism had created the problems in the first place.

Drawing these threads together, Nigel Ashton explores the reasons why British leaders have been unable to resist returning to the mire of the Middle East, while highlighting the misconceptions about the region that have helped shape their interventions, and the legacy of history that has fuelled their pride and arrogance. Ultimately, he shows how their fears and insecurities made them into false prophets who conjured existential threats out of the sands of the Middle East.

Table of contents
1: Anthony Eden: Suezcide of a Statesman 2: Macmillan''s Hot Pursuit of Nasser 3: Douglas-Home''s War in Yemen 4: A Tale of Two Kisses: Harold Wilson, George Brown and the Middle East 5: Heath''s Day of Atonement 6: Callaghan''s ''Local Terrorist Made Good'' 7: Arms and the Woman: Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East 8: Major''s Safe Haven 9: The Next Stage of Evil: Tony Blair and the Middle East 10: In Blair''s Shadow: Gordon Brown and the Middle East 11: Cameron and the Arab Spring
Review quote
Fascinating... Diary entries, telegrams, diplomatic records and, where possible, interviews with aides and advisers help bring out the psychology, preoccupations and prejudices that framed British decision making. The result is an empathetic but not a sympathetic account.
Review quote
Ashton gives an authoritative account of this familiar saga... He unravels the diplomatic and political intricacies with enviable skill.
Review quote
A truly masterly book on a crucial running theme of British history since 1945. It is rich in scholarship, laced with insight and burnished with fluency. Nigel Ashton has a special feel for that fissile terrain where oil, sand, geopolitics and UK foreign policy meet. It is second only to the European Question as a wrecker of premierships and political reputations. False Prophets is a tour de force that will be read for a very long time.
Review quote
Engaging... Ashton frames his study through the lens of 10 Downing Street, showing how its occupants, from Anthony Eden to David Cameron, dealt with successive postwar crises in the world''s most hydrocarbon-rich, but politically volatile, region... It has the advantage of shaping a cacophony of confusing events into a highly readable narrative.
Review quote
A fascina