Since the dawn of civilization, the Middle East, a region at the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe, has been important to large and small powers alike, from the empires of the East to the imperial powers of the West. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which transformed maritime travel between Europe and Asia, added to European interest. The region’s other riches also encouraged European intervention and rivalries. This resulted in a series of confrontations between the Ottoman Empire and its European adversaries, and finally in the collapse of the former and the direct or indirect European colonization of large parts of the region in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But what added to the Middle East’s importance in the twentieth century was oil, which was found in abundance in the Persian Gulf and in parts of North Africa. Moreover, in the strategic context of the Cold War, the region’s geopolitical importance provided an additional reason for the superpowers to increase their role and presence.