In an accessible survey of the last century, ‘Contested Lands’ tells the story of the Middle East since the First World War: what happened, why, and what it all means today. With a focus on the many conflicts in the region over the last one hundred years, T.G. Fraser analyses the fault lines of the tension: the damaging legacies of imperialism; the creation of the State of Israel; the competition between secular, autocratic rulers and emerging democratic and theocratic forces; and the rise – and fall – of Arab Nationalism in the face of fraying regional alliances and the Islamic revival. Against this backdrop comes the twenty-first century, marked first by the tragedy of 9/11, then the ‘Arab Spring’, the Syria’s civil war and now the Israel-Hamas conflict. And amid it all, complex social and economic change have transformed the region.