A Line in the Sand cover art

A Line in the Sand

Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East

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A Line in the Sand

By: James Barr
Narrated by: Peter Noble
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About this listen

 ‘The very grubby coalface of foreign policy … I found the entire book most horribly addictive’ Independent

‘One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other’ Spectator

A fascinating insight into the untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East.

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. They drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier, and together remade the map of the Middle East, with Britain’s 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria.

Over the next thirty years a sordid tale of violence and clandestine political manoeuvring unfolded, told here through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Using declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr vividly depicts the covert, deadly war of intrigue and espionage between Britain and France to rule the Middle East, and reveals the shocking way in which the French finally got their revenge.©2011 James Barr (P)2018 Simon & Schuster, UK Europe France Great Britain Middle East Military Politics & Government War Royalty Africa Imperialism Iran England Thought-Provoking Inspiring Middle ages Winston Churchill Espionage Crusade

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Critic reviews

'With superb research and telling quotations, Barr has skewered the whole shabby story...The convulsion of that fateful line in the sand are still being felt today - not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world' (Michael Binyon)
'Racy... [Barr] is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant' (Max Hastings)
All stars
Most relevant  
We pray for peace and even world leaders talk facilely about a two-state solution: evidently that ship has sailed.
Two weeks after the pogrom and living through news of the retribution I ask: ‘what could justice look like, and clearly the first step must be one of the deepest and most soul-searching repentance on the part of western movers and shakers acknowledging the parts our governments have played in this appalling shambles- shambles originally being the part of a city where blood and guts were to be found strewn everywhere around after the butchers had done their work. This is probably the most shocking audiobook I have read: nobody spared; balanced and fair in distributing the unbearable burden of guilt. What zI learn with utter disbelief is that every atrocity that has confronted us in the news of late- every act of terror and cruelty perpetrated in the last two weeks and for decades previous - has its precedent in what Barr has so vividly documented here.
What has always struck me in all this is that when equally horrific massacres are reported in the news, no campaigning organisation gets sympathetic coverage as regularly as the Zionist cause: what this audiobook makes clear is that everything that has happened in the past fortnight has its precedent in very recent history: European and American history! After all, persecution of Jews has been a predominantly aEurooesn phenomenon, and at base what moral authority could any western power claim particularly in the light of the crusades, for seeking to usePalestine as a scapegoat for our own guilt? The book poses this question from every legitimate angle and the answer it implies is perfectly clear.
Read the Hebrew Bible and see that the Philistines were around 2.000 years ago too!
What is terrible to even think about is the theory of Shlomo Sands in his best-selling book in Israel ‘the invention of the Jewish people,’
that the people we call Palestinians may, in reality, have been Jewish originally themselves: it’s another book, but the idea that these could just be the same people fighting one another, is the worst of all nightmares, though history tells us that the most vicious wars are civil ones!
So we pray for peace and justice: what do they look like? Perhaps the horrors and intrigues recounted in this book could form a basis if the world can be brought to own up to them and be honestly willing to help make amends.

It had to be written!

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A seismic leap for forward for anyone wanting to comprehend the complex chaos of the Middle East.

Essential reading

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A mind blowing account of the turmoil in the ME caused by outsiders, much of which, you don't learn in school! Every party involved should be ashamed of their actions that caused so much disruption that continues to this day. Great narration. I have one dispute to make about the Mufti of Jerusalem "aiding" Hitler, as this wasn't the case.He wanted a German "Balfour Declaration" for the Arabs, but was turned down.

A real eye opener

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What should have been an interesting and fascinating insight into this world and this time, was made incredibly difficult by the flat dry reading. Because of this, my mind wandered, and I struggled with remaining engaged.

Interesting but dry

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Having grown up many generations after the period in question and having just studied secondary school history of the first and second world wars this book is a great insight into the "levant" region now commonly known as the middle east.

It eloquently charts the tit for tat tactics of two former world powers vying for lands and oil in the middle east to loose their foreign colonys in the region and finally culminates with the setting up of the state of Israel with the support of the superpower of the USA and the rejection of British Rule in Palestine much to the satisfaction of France as they had been expelled some years earlier from Syria by local elections where the British backed nationalist candidates.

Well explained insight - i only knew the outine

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This is a superb account of a very complex history. It’s academic and very scholarly while also being extremely accessible. A very heartily recommend it as a grounding, a very good basis to geopolitically locate the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East at the moment. I also greatly recommend “Mornings In Jenin” by Susan Abawala but that just might be altogether too much heartbreak in one go but this piece sets out the land and the players so very well!

Superb account.

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Well researched, well structured history book written so masterfully, it will leave you wanting more. As a complete layman in terms of geopolitics, I found myself researching more and more figures and topics related to the subject. The reading was pleasant, engaging and well produced. Wholehartedly recommend!

Great introduction to a complex issue

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This is a very informative, densely written, account of the machinations of the British and French regarding the Middle East during the first half of the 20th Century. It conveys the difficulty of the situation that both countries found themselves in, while pulling no punches regarding the often abhorrent decisions they made. To this non-expert, it comes across as an excellent piece of research.

--- A weakness is that it is almost entirely focused on Britain and France, or more accurately a series of powerful British and French people. The motivations of some Middle Eastern leaders are briefly discussed. The perspective of the ordinary person living in Iraq, Syria or Palestine, is ignored.

--- The narration is appropriate for the book: clear, precise, hard and dry.

Impressive research - lacks local perspective

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Great audiobook. As an amateur historian I highly recommend this audiobook, the narrator has done a fantastic job and the writing is of the best quality. A great adventure and story of colonial ambition that still resonates today.

Fantastic book

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i knew some of this story but not the details. i had the highlights of Lawrence of Arabia & Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem and the bombing of the King David Hotel etc. All the high (or low) points taught from the British centric point of view. However digging into the detail of just time between the late 1890’s and 1948 leaving aside the Ottoman Empire and The Crusades i don’t think any country or persons come out of this with much glory. (except Gertrude Bell but she does not figure large in this history)

well worth a listen

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