This masterful book completely rethinks the origins of the modern Middle East. Wyrtzen challenges top-down political analyses that privilege the Great Powers at the expense of local forces. Instead, he offers a methodological and empirical focus on spaces of violence to illuminate not only resistance and conflict but also the success and failure of varied political projects. A must-read for all social science and humanities scholars interested in the role of history and violence in explaining modern social and political change in general and the Middle East in particular.–Fatma Müge Göçek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789-2009