Please read the first of two articles by David Fromkin, “How the Modern Middle East Map Came to be Drawn,” Smithsonian, May, 1991, 132ff., which are located under the “Background and Perspectives” section of the syllabus (follow this link to reach the article directly). Note that the second article by Fromkin - about Ataturk - will be assigned later in the course. Once you arrive at the Fromkin article information, follow the directions carefully to get to the article itself, which is archived at InfoTrac. Make sure you are on the NMH Virtual Desktop when you begin working.
Next, write a response to the article (click on the link in this sentence for directions). Print TWO copies - one to be turned in to TT and the other to RES - and bring them to class. Be prepared to read from them and discuss them with one another.
Fromkin wrote his article for The Smithsonian on how the map of today’s Middle East was drawn shortly after the end in 1991 of what historians are beginning to call the “Second Gulf War” - prompted by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in August of 1990. Among his points are these two crucial ones:
1. The 1991 war was the result of problems left unresolved by World War I and the treaties that followed.
2. The 1991 war, along with other problems such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, was also the result of British and French strategies to protect their own interests in the region (dating back to the colonial period) by actively trying to maintain the region in a weak and compliant condition.
Additional background material on the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.
Additional coverage of the time period addressed in both of Fromkin’s essays.
More on why Enver Pasha is a good candidate for the title of “Father of the Modern Middle East”
On a new museum in Ankara devoted to Ataturk, see Sabrina Tavernise, “In Complex Times, Turkey Seeks a Reassuring Face,” New York Times, Jan. 16, 2008.
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