CONTENTS

Introduction

PENNY JOHNSON

The Significance of a Screwdriver

Lines in the Sand: The Great War and the Remaking of the Middle East

AVI SHLAIM

The Post-Ottoman Syndrome

JAMES BARR

The Divisive Line: The Birth and Long Life of the Sykes–Picot Agreement

SALIM TAMARI

Why Did You Rename Your Son? Diaries of the Great War from the Ottoman Front

In the Present Tense: The Unravelling of the Old Order

KHALED FAHMY

Opening Politics’ Black Box: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of the Egyptian Revolution

TAMIM AL-BARGHOUTI

Cracked Cauldrons: The Failure of States and the Rise of New Narratives in the Middle East

JUSTIN MAROZZI

A Long View from Baghdad

RAMITA NAVAI

Iran: Coming in from the Cold?

ALEV SCOTT

Civic Courage: The Clue to Turkey’s Future?

Living and Writing in the Middle East: Fiction, Imagination and History

MAI AL-NAKIB

Living and Writing in Kuwait: What Fiction Can Do

SELMA DABBAGH

Writing the Middle East, Writing Gaza

MARILYN BOOTH

Fiction’s Histories: Writers and Readers in the Middle East

Syria in Crisis

DAWN CHATTY

What You Don’t Read About the Syrian Humanitarian Crisis

ROBIN YASSIN-KASSAB

Syria Seen and Represented

MALU HALASA

Defying the Killers: The Emergence of Street Culture in Syria

Afterword

RAJA SHEHADEH

Palestine and Hope

Notes

Contributors

Acknowledgements