Worldmaking in the Long Great War

Reviewed by: Christopher Anzalone, George Mason University, Virginia, USA

Published by – New York: Columbia University Press, 2022, 314pp. ISBN: 978-0231186285.

The First World War, known originally as the “Great War,” profoundly reshaped the Middle East and North Africa. The war led to the final collapse of the long ailing Ottoman Empire and energized localized movements for independence. In Worldmaking in the Long Great War: How Local and Colonial Struggles Shaped the Modern Middle East, historian Jonathan Wyrtzen of Yale University examines both the multi-front Ottoman war effort as well as how its defeat, alongside its Central Powers allies, and the formal ending of the Ottoman caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1924 affected different regions of its once far-flung empire. The book draws upon extensive archival research in Italy, France, Morocco, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States – Wyrtzen utilizes multiple types of primary sources including diplomatic and political correspondence, treaties, and periodicals. The book is particularly strong in its discussions of how the “Great War” and its aftermath played out in local contexts as well as more broadly across the Middle East and North Africa, though it broadens the historical period under study from approximately 1911 to 1934.

Much has been written about the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement between British and French officials in which both countries agreed to divide the Ottoman Middle East into spheres of influence at the end of the war. The agreement particularly