{related_entries id="evnt_auth_1"} {/related_entries} and {related_entries id="evnt_auth_2"} {/related_entries}

Two leading scholars Professor Eugene Rogan and Dr Rob Johnson discuss the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the significant impact the First World War had on the Middle East of today.

Rogan is author of The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920. In it, he explains how Britain, France and Russia decided to finish off the empire by invading Gallipoli after the Ottomans joined the Central Powers, paving the way for the Middle East of today. Military historian and former soldier Johnson challenges some of the common assertions about local leaders and forces simply being the puppets of the Great Powers in his book The Great War and the Middle East. He argues that war in the Middle East was the centre of a war for imperial domination and prestige, and the way in which local forces and leaders got involved helped to shape the immediate aftermath of the war and set the foundations for conflict in the Middle East today. 

Rogan is professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Oxford and director of St Antony’s College Middle East Centre. Johnson is director of the Changing Character of War research programme at the University of Oxford. He advises both US and European armed forces on defence and security matters.