Laura Robson is the Oliver McCourtney Professor of History at Penn State University, focusing on histories of forced migration, the construction of refugee and asylum policies, and decolonization and mass violence. She has written and edited several books, including States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East; Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine; Minorities and the Modern Arab World: New Perspectives, and, most recently, Partitions: A Transnational History of 20th Century Territorial Separatism, co-edited with Arie Dubnov.

This is an important account of the violence done in the name of state building, by both imperial armies and internal security forces across the region... Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

• Introduction - The 'Mashriq' as a Zone of Violence 1: The Late Ottoman Practice of Violence, 1878 - 1914 2: The Violence of World War, 1914 - 1920 3: Liberal Rhetoric and colonial Violence, 1920 - 1939 4: Violence and the Ethnic Nation-State, 1939 - 1949 5: Militarization and Violence in the Postcolonial State, 1949 - 1967 6: Money, Arms, and the New Sectarian Violence, 1967 - 1988 7: Violence and the New Internationalism, 1988 - 2003 Epilogue - The Triumph of Violence in the Middle East

Laura Robson is the Oliver McCourtney Professor of History at Penn State University, focusing on histories of forced migration, the construction of refugee and asylum policies, and decolonization and mass violence. She has written and edited several books, including States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East; Colonialism and Christianity in Mandate Palestine; Minorities and the Modern Arab World: New Perspectives, and, most recently, Partitions: A Transnational History of 20th Century Territorial Separatism, co-edited with Arie Dubnov.

This is an important account of the violence done in the name of state building, by both imperial armies and internal security forces across the region... Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

• Introduction - The 'Mashriq' as a Zone of Violence 1: The Late Ottoman Practice of Violence, 1878 - 1914 2: The Violence of World War, 1914 - 1920 3: Liberal Rhetoric and colonial Violence, 1920 - 1939 4: Violence and the Ethnic Nation-State, 1939 - 1949 5: Militarization and Violence in the Postcolonial State, 1949 - 1967 6: Money, Arms, and the New Sectarian Violence, 1967 - 1988 7: Violence and the New Internationalism, 1988 - 2003 Epilogue - The Triumph of Violence in the Middle East