Volume 30, Number 13 · August 18, 1983
Storm in a Teacup
By John Keegan
From Agadir to Armageddon: Anatomy of a Crisis
by Geoffrey Barraclough
Holmes and Meier, 196 pp., $22.50
The Conquest of Morocco
by Douglas Porch
Knopf, 335 pp., $16.95
Armageddon is generally supposed to be the first recorded battle of history, fought between Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, and some of his rebellious subjects near the site of modern Haifa in 1469 BC. By analogy, and thanks to the Apocalypse of St. John, it has come to stand also for the last battle, which will precede the Day of Judgment. It says something for the ethos of the First World War that Allenby's victory over the Turks in northern Palestine in 1918 was hailed as the Second Battle of Armageddon—no doubt without prejudice, as the lawyers say, to the prerogative of the Lord of Hosts. Today the name is much in circulation again, since it is toward Armageddon that the tide of nuclear armaments is supposed to be sweeping mankind. And who, heaven knows, shall say that it is not?
Review, 2871 words
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