Western imperialism is one of the architects of the horror show in the modern Middle East, though not the only one.

A woman holds a portrait of a Kurdish fighter killed while fighting Islamic State.
Alamy / AP, Ahmad Baderkhan

Battleground: Ten Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East

CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS

(YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 320 PP, £18.99)
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For months now, the world has been horrified by the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israel’s army is pounding the Palestinian enclave into rubble in its war against Hamas. But is this disaster a solitary blip or part of a wider arc of wars and crises stretching like an oil stain across the Middle East?

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Blood on our hands