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Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

BBC Radio 4 LW

Anne McElvoy

Richard Evans

Malu Halasa

Scott Anderson

Ali Allawi

Katy Hickman

Start the Week: Faisal I of Iraq and the making of the modern Middle East

Lawrence of Arabia and the making of the modern Middle East

24/03/2014

Faisal I of Iraq and the making of the modern Middle East

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Faisal I of Iraq and the making of the modern Middle East

Anne McElvoy with Richard Evans, Malu Halasa, Scott Anderson and Ali Allawi.

Anne McElvoy discusses the making of the modern Middle East and counterfactual history with Richard Evans, Malu Halasa, Scott Anderson and Ali Allawi.

Anne McElvoy explores the roads not taken with the historian Richard Evans. Counterfactual history began as an Enlightenment parlour game and has become a serious academic pursuit, but Evans argues against endless speculation as to what might have been. The final meeting between Lawrence of Arabia and Faisal I of Iraq was an anti-climax which belied their history. The biographers of these two leaders, Scott Anderson and the former Iraqi politician Ali Allawi, place these men at the centre of the making of the modern Middle East. The writer Malu Halasa offers an alternative view of the violent events in Syria as she curates a book of political posters, comic strips, blogs and plays.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Faisal I of Iraq and the making of the modern Middle East

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