“I am delighted with your book…and am learning a lot from it, and agreeing with almost all you propose!”
—Lord Caradon (British ambassador to the UN)

William Polk is a real pleasure to read…He has a genuine historical approach, and an easy thoughtful style. He also has a very fair and inquiring mind…I can’t remember a better general book on the whole region and recommend it most heartily.”
—The New Statesman

“William Polk, a professional in history and diplomacy who is fully at home in the Middle East, manages to simplify without distorting the region’s problems of war and peace, of wealth and poverty, and of adaptation to the modern world, setting them against a background of political and cultural history. His vision is keen and his judgments worth pondering.”
—Foreign Affairs

“An excellent summary of the history, old and new…Polk’s even-handedness is very evident.
—International Relations

“…written with a relentlessly realistic honesty, free from illusion, cant or rant.”
—Middle East International

“This incisive study of the Middle East in the twentieth century provides the essential background to the current turmoil…and suggests a means to solve the dangerous, costly and tragic conflict between the Arabs and Israel."
—ITCC REVIEW (Israel)