Power, faith, and fantasy : America in the Middle East, 1776 to the present / Michael B. Oren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oren, Michael B., 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Middle East--Foreign relations--United States.

Middle East.

International relations.

United States.

United States--Foreign relations--Middle East.

Physical Description:

xxii, 778 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : W.W.Norton & Co., [2007]

Summary:

From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at North African pirates to the conquest of Falluja by the Marines--from the early American explorers who probed the sources of the Nile to the diplomats who strove for Arab-Israeli peace--the United States has been dramatically involved in the Middle East. For well over two centuries, American statesmen, merchants, and missionaries, both men and women, have had a profound impact on the shaping of this crucial region. Yet their story has never been told until now. Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, featuring original maps and over sixty photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land stretching from Morocco to Iran, from the Persian Gulf to the Bosporus.--From publisher description.

Contents:

Chronology

Prologue: A passage to glory

Introduction: Recovering a pivotal past

Pt. 1: Early America encounters the Middle East. A mortal and mortifying threat ; The hostile and ethereal Orient ; A crucible of American identity ; Illuminating and emancipating the world

Pt. 2: The Middle East and antebellum America. Confluence and conflict ; Manifest Middle Eastern destiny ; Under American eyes

Pt. 3: The Civil War and Reconstruction. Fission ; Rebs and Yanks on the Nile ; The trumpet that never calls retreat ; American onslaught ; Resurgence

Pt. 4: The age of imperialism. Empires at dawn ; Imperial piety ; Imperial myths ; A region renamed and reordered

Pt. 5: America, the Middle East, and the Great War. Spectators of catastrophe ; Action or nonaction? ; An American movement is born ; Arise, o Arabs, and awake! ; The first Middle East peace process ; Fantasies revived

Pt. 6: Oil, war, and ascendancy. From Bibles to drill bits ; An insoluble conflict evolves ; A torch for the Middle East ; The Middle East and the man from Missouri

Pt. 7: In search of Pax Americana. Harmony and hegemony ; The thirty years' war

Epilogue: A profound and visceral gratitude.

Notes:

Color maps on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [685]-733) and index.

ISBN:

9780393058260

OCLC:

74965235

Publisher Number:

9780393058260