THE GREAT WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST 2018 Fall 273 I nspired by the centenary of World War I (WWI), a plethora of his- tory books have been released recently. Tis article reviews four of the latest studies on the Middle East- ern theater of WWI. Accelerating the fall of the Ottoman Empire and pav- ing the way for the state system (not- withstanding under mandatory rule), WWI was essential to the formation of the modern Middle East. Te lega- cies of WWI continue to be a source of contradictory interpretation and resentment in the Middle East. Te war not only irrevocably trans- formed the political structure in the region, it also upset the lives of its people, as it involved almost all so- cio-economic classes through com- bat, famine, widespread hardship, economic disruption or population displacements, “resulting from the carving out of competing and hos- tile spheres of infuence and control” (Ulrichsen, p. 2). A decade of war- fare comprised of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), WWI (1914-1918), and the Turkish War of Independence * İstanbul Şehir University, Turkey Insight Turkey Vol. 20 / No. 4 / 2018, pp. 273-281 REVIEW ARTICLE DOI: 10.25253/99.2018204.14 The Great War in the Middle East FİKRİYE KARAMAN * The First World War in the Middle East By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen London: Hurst & Company, 2014, 320 pages, £27.50, ISBN: 9781849042741 The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East By Eugene Rogan New York: Basic Books, 2016, 512 pages, $23.00, ISBN: 9780465097425 A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War By Leila Tarazi Fawaz Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2014, 416 pages, $35.00, ISBN: 9780674735491 The Great War and the Middle East By Rob Johnson Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 354 pages, £25, ISBN: 9780199683284