What Really Went Wrong – review

In What Really Went Wrong, Fawaz Gerges reframes the Middle East’s modern history through a postcolonial lens, challenging narratives that blame internal cultural failures for the region’s instability. Instead, Gerges argues that Western interventions—particularly by the US, UK, and France—systematically suppressed democratic movements and entrenched authoritarian regimes. Reviewing the book, Mazlum Özkan acknowledges its powerful critique but questions whether the rise of political Islam can be entirely attributed to foreign meddling, suggesting that indigenous ideological developments also played a critical role. This review situates Gerges’s work within broader debates on US empire, postcolonialism, and Middle East politics.