Nigel Ashton

Historian Nigel Ashton says British leaders have been unable to resist getting mired in the Middle East despite the disaster of the Suez Crisis and explains why they do it and why it often leads to disaster.

Ashton says Britain shaped the Middle East with the lines it drew in the sand after the First World War. However, the Suez crisis dealt a fatal blow to Britain’s standing in the region. Ashton says Anthony Eden and Tony Blair were not the only ones to ruin their reputations with interventions.  He argues that the legacy of history fuelled their pride and arrogance, and their fears and insecurities made them into false prophets who conjured up existential threats out of the Middle East.

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

Ashton is professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of King Hussein of Jordan; Kennedy, Macmillan and the Cold War; and Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser.