History repeats over and over

books:


	• Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present Michael B. Oren W. W. Norton, 2008 - 800 pages average customer review:based on 86 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Power, Faith and Fantasy

An excellent textbook about our country's relationship/history with the Middle East over the past 230 years. I highly recommend it. Especially relevant in today's world.

Read the First Half

Oren's book offers an interesting description of 18th and 19th century Americans' vision of, and relations with, the Middle East. It includes good accounts of early American visitors to the region, the naval/pirate conflicts with North African states, and the origins of American evangelical ideas that Jews needed to be returned to the Holy Land. (Two of Oren's fun facts: the Star-Spangled Banner has its origins in an earlier work by Francis Scott Key on the conflict with the Barbary states, and the Statue of Liberty was a remodeled version of colossal statue that was supposed to depict the enlightenment of Egypt).

As the book plunges into the 20th century it becomes less adequate. Oren explains that he does not feel obligated to give more than a brief survey of events in the Cold War and after. That seems fair enough; the book is already 600 pages. But even before the post-1948 survey, the desire to chronicle what happened seems to overwhelm any incisive interpretation. The significance of oil in shaping relations and policy is definitely described, but it seems like it deserves a more prominent place. Also, Oren makes this grand claim in the final pages of the book: "On balance, Americans historically brought far more beneficence than avarice to the Middle East and caused significantly less harm than good." Does the history of US relations with Middle Eastern states really support that analysis? It seems a particularly risky proposition in 2008, with the US mired in Iraq. How would one go about trying to tabulate such a balance sheet? How would one factor in US bolstering of dictatorial regimes in places like Saudi Arabia? Or the overturning of a nationalist Iranian government by the CIA? Oren's own history shows how little Americans actually understood about the region and its people, even as they attempted to shape its future. It seems unlikely that a basically imperial perspective could also coincidentally be the basis for a good policy that put the people of the Middle East first. Oren seems to be falling into the trap that he describes in his book. His final judgment oddly seems to reinforce the myths about the American role in the region as a champion of enlightenment. It understates how much US policy was driven fundamentally by what all states are driven by: strategic interests and demand for economic resources.

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History repeats over and over

this book is excellent for those who want a good read and some serious facts about the continued interwoven involvement of the US in the Middle East. The first part of the book adeptly describes how America came to think of the Middle East as a place where Americans could change history. Recommended reading for all who enjoy history and like reading in novel-style.

Good, but not great

Any parochial notion that America only recently stumbled into the maelstrom of Middle Eastern religious and political conflict will not long survive this entertaining, though flawed, survey of Americans' encounters with the region since the War of Independence. Oren identifies three overarching themes that have shaped the country's attitudes towards the Middle East (they're right there in the title, in case that weren't already obvious) and sticks manfully to a rotating tripartite structure through the volume, though the last chapter, which covers the period from the birth of Israel to the Iraq War, is hopelessly rushed and inadequate. A large number of typos and avoidable errors of fact, coupled with a prose style that can best be described as earnestly clunky, will probably set one's teeth on edge more than once, but there is plenty of information here that will come as a surprise to the average reader (for example, did you know that American veterans of the Civil War - both Union and Confederate - essentially created the Egyptian army? I certainly didn't). It's not a book I care to own, but I'm glad to have read it. One suggestion for future works, Mr. Oren: Describing each and every major personage's physical appearance is a luxury only, NOT a requirement!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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.

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