The term ‘Fertile Crescent’ is commonly used to refer to the group of territories extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates. In this book, it is assumed to consist of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine. Much has been written on the history of these countries, which originated from the Ottoman Empire after 1918 and became Mandates under the League of Nations. This book provides a comparative overview of how Britain and France came to rule these five portions of the Ottoman empire during 1914-1958 and how they dealt with them. It examines contrasting imperial techniques for controlling these temporary dependencies, as well as the interaction between western imperialism in its final phase and the power of nascent Arab nationalism. Essentially, these European powers converted what had been relatively quiescent provinces of the Ottoman empire into some of the least stable and internationally explosive states in the world. This was certainly not the intention of the mandatory powers, and the reasons for this outcome are specific to each of the five territories. This book investigates why it happened.