'Fascinating' Guardian, 'Book of the Day'

'A truly masterly book... A tour de force that will be read for a very long time.' Peter Hennessy

Selected by the New Statesman as an essential read for 2022

Britain shaped the modern Middle East through the lines that it drew in the sand after the First World War and through the League of Nations mandates over the fledgling states that followed. Less than forty years later, the Suez crisis dealt a fatal blow to Britain's standing in the Middle East and is often represented as the final throes of British imperialism. However, as this insightful and compelling new book reveals, successive prime ministers have all sought to extend British influence in the Middle East and their actions have often led to a disastrous outcome.

While Anthony Eden and Tony Blair are the two most prominent examples of prime ministers whose reputations have been ruined by their interventions in the region, they were not alone in taking significant risks in deploying British forces to the Middle East. There was an unspoken assumption that Britain could help solve its problems, even if only for the reason that British imperialism had created the problems in the first place.

Drawing these threads together, Nigel Ashton explores the reasons why British leaders have been unable to resist returning to the mire of the Middle East, while highlighting the misconceptions about the region that have helped shape their interventions, and the legacy of history that has fuelled their pride and arrogance. Ultimately, he shows how their fears and insecurities made them into false prophets who conjured existential threats out of the sands of the Middle East.

About the Author
Nigel Ashton is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a specialist in the modern politics of the Middle East. He is the author of King Hussein of Jordan; Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War; and Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser.

Reviews
Fascinating... Diary entries, telegrams, diplomatic records and, where possible, interviews with aides and advisers help bring out the psychology, preoccupations and prejudices that framed British decision making. The result is an empathetic but not a sympathetic account. * Guardian, 'Book of the Day' *
Ashton gives an authoritative account of this familiar saga... He unravels the diplomatic and political intricacies with enviable skill. -- Piers Brendon * Literary Review *
A truly masterly book on a crucial running theme of British history since 1945. It is rich in scholarship, laced with insight and burnished with fluency. Nigel Ashton has a special feel for that fissile terrain where oil, sand, geopolitics and UK foreign policy meet. It is second only to the European Question as a wrecker of premierships and political reputations. False Prophets is a tour de force that will be read for a very long time. -- Peter Hennessy, author of WINDS OF CHANGE
Engaging... Ashton frames his study through the lens of 10 Downing Street, showing how its occupants, from Anthony Eden to David Cameron, dealt with successive postwar crises in the world's most hydrocarbon-rich, but politically volatile, region... It has the advantage of shaping a cacophony of confusing events into a highly readable narrative. * Financial TImes *
A fascinating and challenging insight into the twists and turns of Britain's relationship with the Middle East. Prime ministers and their diplomatic advisers must understand this history if we are to get better at understanding this region in the future. -- Tom Fletcher, author of THE NAKED DIPLOMAT
As Nigel Ashton details in his insightful book False Prophets, successive British prime ministers have been lured into the quick-sands of the Middle East by an exaggerated sense of the threat emanating from the region and by the desire to enhance the UK's "special relationship" with the US. Too often, Britain's over-estimation of its ability to control events led to interventions that proved detrimental to national interests and compounded the region's problems. -- Emma Sky, author of THE UNRAVELLING
A masterful new account of the perceptions and underlying motivations that swept a succession of British prime ministers into (often messy) entanglements in the Middle East, post-1955. Superbly researched and written with tempo, this is a brilliant book; one which will be enjoyed by professional historians and general readers alike - not least because the author has a special eye for those small yet revealing, sometimes ironic, often amusing, moments that history can so delightfully throw our way. -- Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, President and CEO of the International Peace Institute
This is an outstanding book, combining a wide-ranging knowledge of the history of the Middle East and of successive prime ministers, interwoven with a vital understanding of Anglo-American relations. It is both stimulating and very well-written. -- Kathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History, University College London
As if Anthony Eden's tragic missteps over Suez in 1956 were not warning enough, this lively, sobering account shows how British prime ministers have continued to get drawn into Middle Eastern affairs, often at a high political cost and with little foreign policy gain. -- Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London
Nigel Ashton's fascinating, sweeping study, lively and detailed, is of all prime ministers trying to exert their personal authority in the Middle East and to sustain the idea of Britain as a world power. It is a history of ambitions, egos, imperiousness, interventions and often failure, with painful legacies, and it is written with an expert's grasp. -- Dr James Ellison, Reader in History, Queen Mary, University of London
Vivid and salutary. * The Tablet *
This fascinating book makes a strong case that the volatile mixture of history, economic interests and personal convictions it describes will continue to exert a fateful fascination for British prime ministers. -- Peter Ricketts * Engelsberg Ideas *



Book Information
ISBN 9781786493286
Author Professor Nigel Ashton
Format Paperback
Page Count 480
Imprint Atlantic Books
Publisher Atlantic Books
Weight(grams) 405g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 29mm