A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War

by Leila Tarazi Fawaz

The Great War transformed the Middle East, bringing to an end four hundred years of Ottoman rule in Arab lands while giving rise to the Middle East as we know it today. A century later, the experiences of ordinary men and women during those calamitous years have faded from memory. A Land of Aching Hearts traverses ethnic, class, and national borders to recover the personal stories of the civilians and soldiers who endured this cataclysmic event.

Among those who suffered were the people of Greater Syria―comprising modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine―as well as the people of Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. Beyond the shifting fortunes of the battlefield, the region was devastated by a British and French naval blockade made worse by Ottoman war measures. Famine, disease, inflation, and an influx of refugees were everyday realities. But the local populations were not passive victims. Fawaz chronicles the initiative and resilience of civilian émigrés, entrepreneurs, draft-dodgers, soldiers, villagers, and townsmen determined to survive the war as best they could. The right mix of ingenuity and practicality often meant the difference between life and death.

The war’s aftermath proved bitter for many survivors. Nationalist aspirations were quashed as Britain and France divided the Middle East along artificial borders that still cause resentment. The misery of the Great War, and a profound sense of huge sacrifices made in vain, would color people’s views of politics and the West for the century to come.

Genres: History, Middle East, World War I, Nonfiction, War

416 pages, Hardcover

First published October 20, 2014

Reviews

[Shrike58]

As to why this book wound up on Mount TBR, much of it boils down to I thought that a woman author would bring a different perspective to the whole matter, and Lelia Fawaz does. This is as she does successfully integrate the experience of individuals (the trauma, death, and dislocation) with the over-arching slow-motion collapse of the Ottoman polity, with a further particular emphasis on what was referred to as "Greater Syria."

This is of serious contemporary relevance as the fall of the Ottoman Empire remains the great gift that keeps on giving in the modern world, in as much as nothing remains settled in the wider Middle East. At this moment it appears that Ankara and Tel Aviv are seriously flirting with a military dust-up over the control of Syria. If one feels the need to read an introduction to the deep history of all this, I think this is a fine entry point.

[Andrew Mackin]

A brilliant history book that excavates a piece of World War I that we are not taught enough about in the West. The standout of this book, of course, is Fawaz’a focus on the human and the quotidian, the everyday impact of war and famine on people’s lives. Both soldiers and civilians, this book shows how WWI affected every aspect of their lives: financial, political, cultural, familial, agricultural…

[Lukas Hobbes]

Read this for lecture in college, i love her collection of sources specifically the small autobiographies and newspapers, i think she rly gave quality modern historical work, like this is where we should be getting the information, from ppl who were there on the ground while everything was happening around them, her last sentence at the end of the book i will engrave into all of my research in the future

[Bernadette]

This book speaks to the greater global impact of the Great War that reaches well beyond what is often studied as the direct impact. It highlights the many innocents who perished because of the decisions made by the belligerent powers, and the very machinations of war.

[William]

World War I impact on the people of the Middle East.