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Chargement... Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Presentpar Michael B. Oren
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. I read this book to learn about the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. I did, thanks to Oren's research, narrative style and clear thesis, that the realities of power, the strength of religious forces in America and the fantasies of the area exposed by Edward Said are the key influences on the U.S. interactions with the peoples of the Middle East. Oren deftly relates the trade and other relations between the newly independent United States and the Maghrib states of Morocco, Algiers, etc. at the close of the eighteenth century. He continues with the struggle against the Barbary States in the early nineteenth century and the opening of relations with the Ottoman Empire. Oren's history filled in lots of gaps in my knowledge and clarified my understanding--he was particularly good on American Zionism and the rather strange ambivalence so many American political leaders seemed to have toward Jews. Lots of strengths to this book, and it seems to be the only comprehensive book on its subject. Long book arguing that the three themes/concepts have structured American reactions to and interventions in the Middle East, a thesis broad enough that it’s pretty hard to imagine falsifying it. Basically, our policies were a lot more coherent in the eighteenth century, and it’s such a mess now that all we’ve got left is hoping that our relations magically improve. The threat of an armed Islamic Middle East played an important role as an impetus towards creating a strong American military force. It is not surprising that the song lyrics state: "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli." Jefferson's administration had to confront the challenge to the emerging nation's weakness and inability to defend itself against foreign enemies. As stated by Michael Oren: "A threat from the Middle East had played a concrete role in creating a truly United States, a consolidated nation capable of defending not only its borders at home but its vital economic interests overseas" (pp. 31-32). aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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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.Includes information on Adams colony, Afghanistan, Algiers, Muhammad Ali, al Qaeda, Anatolia, Arabism, Arab Israeli conflict, Arab nationalism, Arab Revolt, Yasser Arafat, Armenia, Bahrain, William Bainbridge, Balfour Declaration, Barbary States, Barbary Wars, David Ben-Gurion, Osama bin Laden, Louis Brandeis, Bulgaria, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Charles Chaille-Long, Winston Churchill, U.S. Civil War, Bill Clinton, Cold War, U.S. Congress, Charles Crane, Jefferson Davis, Stephen Decatur, U.S. Democratic Party, David F. Dorr, William Eaton, Egypt, Egypt Civil War, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Bethune English, Pliny Fisk, France, Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Golan Heights, Ulysses S. Grant, Great Britain, Greece, Gulf War of 1991, Haganah, Hassan (Dey of Algiers), Theodore Herzl, Hizbollah (Party of God), Hollywood, Holocaust, Edward Mandell House, Saddam Hussein, ibn Saud (Abd al-Aziz King of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Islam, Ismaʾil (Khedive of Egypt, Israel, Italy, Andrew Jackson, Japan, Thomas Jefferson, Jerusalem, Jewish national home concept, Jews, Jordan, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Kuwait, Robert Lansing, League of nations, Lebanon, John Ledyard, Libya, Abraham Lincoln, William Wing Loring, William Francis Lynch, James Madison, Alfred Thayer Mahan, manifest destiny, Maronites, U.S. Mediterranean Squadron, Golda Meir, Herman Melville, Mesopotamia, Mexico, missionaries, missionary movement, Henry Morgenthau, Morocco, Muhammad Mossadegh, Gamal Abdul Nasser, U.S. Navy, New York Times (newspaper), Richard M. Nixon, oil, oil industry,Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Levi Parsons, Persia, USS Philadelphia (frigate), David Porter, Protestantism, Muammar Qadhafi, Yusuf Qaramanli (Pasha of Tripoli), Quran (Koran), Yitzhak Rabin, Ahmad Ben Muhammad al Raisuli, Ronald Reagan, restorationism, U.S. Republican Party, Robert college, Edward Robinson, Franklin d. Roosevelt, Imperial Russia, Anwar Sadat, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Senate, September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, William Henry Seward, William Tecumseh Sherman, Six Day War, Sixth Fleet, slavery, slave trade, Soviet Union, U.S. State Department, Suez Canal, Syria, terrorism, A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Operation Torch, Tripoli, Harry S. Truman, Tunis, Turkey, Mark Twain, United Nations, United States Ottoman relations, Vietnam War, Wahhabism, U.S. War Department, War of 1812, chaim Weizman, West Bank, William Westermann, White Paper, Woodrow Wilson, Worldʾs Columbian Exposition of 1893, World War I, World War II, Yom Kippur War, Zion, Zionists, etc. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)327.73056Social sciences Political Science International Relations North America United States U.S.-Asian RelationsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren is a very long book in which the authors makes his case about the important role the US played, and still plays, in the Middle East as well as the way the Islamic Middle East played a role in created the mighty American military. The threats from the Middle East not only played a role in creating a strong army to defend the borders of the US, but also its interests abroad.
The book states that the policies towards Middle East has been coherent in the 18th Century, but now they are a mess, as is the region itself. Mr. Oren does a fine job observing neutrality throughout the book, especially on contentious issues, quoting policy makers and careful not to take a stand himself.
Besides objective history, Mr. Oren also writes about the personalities involved, including little anecdotes which always make history fun. It was amazing for me to read how much Christian restorationism has influenced American policy before World War II and how the AIPAC has influenced policy afterwards.
The book is big on details, but the narrative is entertaining and interesting. I applaud the author for going through, what seems like, a fantastic amount of research through primary sources and governmental records.
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