Using new archival material from Ottoman, Arabic and European sources, Eugene Rogan documents the case of Transjordan to provide a theoretically informed account of how the Ottoman state restructured itself during the last decades of its empire. In so doing, he explores the idea of frontier as a geographical and cultural boundary and sheds light on the processes of state formation that led to the creation of the Middle East as it is today. The book concludes with an examination of the Ottoman legacy in the modern state of Jordan.