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| Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
Paperback
Author: Michael B. Oren
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Release Date: 2008-02-05
ISBN-10: 0393330303
ISBN-13: 9780393330304
List Price: $17.95
Average Customer Rating:
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The history of America's political, military, and intellectual involvement in the Middle East from George Washington to George W. Bush. "Will shape our thinking about America and the Middle East for years."—Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
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. Covering over 230 years of history, Power, Faith, and Fantasy is an indispensable work for anyone interested in understanding the roots of America's Middle East involvement today. As Niall Ferguson writes, "If you think America's entanglement in the Middle East began with Roosevelt and Truman, Michael Oren's deeply researched and brilliantly written history will be a revelation to you, as it was to me. With its cast of fascinating characters—earnest missionaries, maverick converts, wide-eyed tourists, and even a nineteenth-century George Bush—Power, Faith, and Fantasy is not only a terrific read, it is also proof that you don't really understand an issue until you know its history." 68 illustrations; 4 maps. With a new afterword for the paperback.
Learned piece of historical writing
| Customer Rating: | From the founding of the USA in 1776 and the Ottoman Empire to today's Middle East, Oren writes clearly and compellingly about the USA and that area of the world. The detail is illuminating, the dispassionate scholarly approach is welcome, (there appears no political bias). It would be hard to imagine a better written or more complete history of the US and its continued involvement in the region. From the Ottoman Empire to its collapse in WWI, the ensuing colonial establishment by Europe and Russia, the massive need of the world for the oil of the region, the fated rise of Zionism, the battle waged to keep Russia from gaining control, the fall of secular control and the rise of fundamental Islam in many states, the continued failure despite so many efforts to bring peace to the area, the upsurge in militant Islam and the attacks on the USA and Europe, are all written about with enough detail to give the reader a clear sense of the continuing themes which reveal themselves and the very difficult challenges all American presidents since Wilson have had there.
From WWII's end to today, all the names and events are woven into a very readable narrative. Any reader will be far better informed as a reward for 604 pages of text and the 128 pages of reference material to support the work.
As at the ball park, you can't know the game without the program. This is a big help. |
Adds depth to understanding past and present Mid East/US relationship
| Customer Rating:  | The title says it all. A wonderful exploration of our country's dealings with the countries and cultures of the Middle East from the time America was born until present day. Lots of fascinating historical information and personal stories. Reading the book added depth to my understanding of our historical relationship with the Middle Eastern countries and why we are where we are in the Mid East today. Well written and well worth the read.
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Thanks for writing this!
| Customer Rating: | Excellent. A true addition to my understanding of the world.
Should be required reading for anyone in public office.
go read it now.
yes, now. |
Interesting and informative
| Customer Rating: | "Power, Faith, and Fantasy" is worth buying. Given the major role the Middle East is playing in world affairs today, it pays to learn more about the history behind current events. This book will give it to you. I travel to that part of the world on occasion and wanted to learn more about it. The book satisfied my need in that regard.
Oren's writing style is clear, albeit at times with a few pretentious vocabulary choices. He does a good job of extracting history by using many stories. This narrative quilt works reasonably well most of the time, but sometimes leaves you wanting a more linear approach. Stories, however, are entertaining and that keeps you coming back for more. One of Oren's favorite tactics (that wears thin eventually) is to take you down one path -- 'things are looking bad, but ... there are some good things about to happen.' This back flipping is his way of balancing events. After awhile you get to expect the other shoe to drop and the device loses its effectiveness. However, the 600 pages are rarely boring and the amount of U.S. history behind the Middle East is unexpectedly enlightening.
In the end, you'll discover the book lives exactly up to its title in what Oren stresses. The U.S. government is constantly bedeviled by how to treat Arab/Muslim countries when there is such a cultural and religious difference. There is no way to "win" politically, morally, militarily, or popularly. The missionaries are frustrated by an inability to covert locals and switch to humanitarian care when not dying from disease or being attacked by natives. The U.S. population is enamored of the image of the nomadic and sensuous Arabs and easily enticed by cheap imagery. Until 911 that is.
Oren helps us understand the complex mix that makes the Middle East a place of shifting sands both physically and politically. See if you don't come away concluding the Jews and the Arabs will never reconcile over Israel. A perverse conclusion (mine, not his) from Oren's work is that the state of Israel is really Hitler's "final solution" -- a sort of simmering residual holocaust waiting to reignite.
You are now free to click the "order" button. |
Informative, almost entertaining
| Customer Rating: | I found this a fascinating if somewhat redundant accounting of the U.S. involvement with the Middle East since our nation's birth. Many of the historical anecdotes are almost chilling in their forshadowing of events of the last few years.
I'd recommend it if your a solid history and politics student. |
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