Tomorrow marks the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Suez Crisis, an event that altered the shape of the post-Word War II world and had more than its fair share of unintended consequences. David Fromkin has an excellent write-up on the crisis in today’s New York Times.
Fromkin’s The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, though published in 1989, is still the best book I’ve ever read on the subject.
Certainly helps to frame the protracted, tangled and deep seated nature of the conflict.