The Man Who Created the Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-Picot Agreement

A wonderful personality sketch of an unjustly maligned but very interesting individual.

As a student of history, I would like to know more about the division of land, the bartering of borders,etc. The knowledge of Mr. Syke's descendant doesn't seem to help.

poorly written book

The biography is about Mark Sykes, Christopher Simon Sykes' grandfather. The Sykes family own extensive lands in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The beginning of the book, describing Mark Sykes' upbringing could almost be televised as Downton Abbey with scandal. The latter part of the book deals Mark Sykes' career as an MP and his role in formulating the boundaries and spheres of influence in the Middle East. What this book lacked was a detailed family tree, and possibly maps to help with Mark Sykes' extensive travels.

It took 200 pages to get to the actual meat of the story. The meat was good, just not enough of it. The book dwelled too long on Mark Syke's backstory and irrelevant quotes/letters. Also, Mark Sykes was a spoiled man-child brat that, with the help of Picot, basically destroyed the Middle East out of stupidity and arrogance. This book could have been summarized in 50 pages, let alone 350...