The campaigns fought by the Ottomans against the British in Palestine are often neglected in accounts of the Great War, yet they are fascinating from the point of view of military history and critically important because of their impact upon the modern Middle East. Edward Erickson's authoritative and absorbing account of the four-year struggle for control of Palestine between 1914 and 1918 of the battles fought for Suez, Sinai, Gaza, Jordan and Syria opens up this little-understood aspect of the global conflict and it does so in a strikingly original way, by covering the fighting from the Ottoman perspective. Using Turkish official histories and military archives, he recounts the entire course of the campaigns, from the initial attack by German-led Ottoman forces on Sinai and the Suez Canal, the struggle for Gaza and the outbreak of the Arab Revolt to the British offensives, the battle for Jerusalem, the Ottoman defeat at Megiddo and the rapid British advance which led to the capture of Damascus and Aleppo in 1918.

The Ottoman Mobilization of Manpower in the First World War examines how the Ottoman Empire tried to cope with the challenges of permanent mobilization and how this process reshaped state-society relations in 1914-1918, focusing mainly on Anatolia and the Muslim population.

The Battle of Megiddo was not only the last large cavalry offensive in world history, but also a tribute to combined arms operations fostered over the course of the First World War. Fought between 19-25 September 1918, it was the final Allied offensive of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The contending forces were the British Empire’s EEF (Egyptian Expeditionary Force) of three infantry and one mounted corps pitted against the Ottoman-German Yildirim Army Group which numbered three weak armies with the approximate total strength of a single enemy corps. Comparable to what General Erich von Ludendorff called the ‘Black Day’ of the German Army (opening of the Battle of Amiens, 8 August 1918) on the Western Front, the complete Ottoman defeat would have been impossible without the application of superior logistics. Whilst Megiddo did not determine the outcome of the war in the Middle East, the ramifications of the victory decisively shaped the post-war world in the region.

This anthology surveys the ecological impacts of the First World War. Editors Richard P. Tucker, Tait Keller, J. R. McNeill, and Martin Schmidt bring together a list of experienced authors who explore the global interactions of states, armies, civilians, and the environment during the war. They show how the First World War ushered in enormous environmental changes, including the devastation of rural and urban environments, the consumption of strategic natural resources such as metals and petroleum, the impact of war on urban industry, and the disruption of agricultural landscapes leading to widespread famine. Taking a global perspective, Environmental Histories of the First World War presents the ecological consequences of the vast destructive power of the new weaponry and the close collaboration between militaries and civilian governments taking place during this time, showing how this war set trends for the rest of the century.

A fundamental reassessment of German politics and strategy during the First World War and why it was that Germany lost.

This book explains the increasing incidences and normalisation of Islamophobia, by analysing the role of signifiers of free speech, censorship, and fatwa during the Satanic Verses affair in problematising the figure of the Muslim. Ismail Patel develops the notion of Islamophobia not as a continuation of the antagonistic relation from the British Empire but as a postcolonial reformulation of the figure of the Muslim. The book views Islamophobia studies as a paradigm, engages in the debate of Islamophobia as a global phenomenon, investigates the contestation over its definition and challenges the view of Islamophobia as a reserve of the far-right. It assesses the debate around the concept of identity and shows how the colonised figure of the Muslim provided significance in constructing British imperial identity. Providing a decolonial, counter-Islamophobia approach that challenges Britishness’ exclusionary white symbolic content, the book calls for a liberating idea of Britishness that promotes a post-racist rather than a post-race society. Theoretically rich in analysis, this book will contribute to discussions of identity formation, Britishness, Islamophobia and counter-Islamophobia. It will be of use to students and researchers across history, politics, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and anthropology.