Modern History and Politics -- the Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite by Robert D. Kaplan (1995)

Arabists: Romance of Elite, by Robert D. Kaplan. New York: Free Press, 1993. xi + 312 pages. Bibl. to p. 317. Index to p. 333. $24.95. Perhaps best line in book is when author muses, Generalizations about are easy, provided one has never met any (p. 130). But this is followed by nine chapters which only reinforce outdated stereotype. repeated use of term Arabists to refer to US Middle East area experts, term which he acknowledges is pejorative, reveals book's underlying negative tone. These members of American are seen as wealthy WASPs with romantic view of Araby, another unusual, even archaic term. While book opens with interesting reiteration of Protestant missionary and British experience, it is far less convincing when forging intellectual connection between that past and America's modern diplomats. Throughout, exceptional is presented as typical: missionary story segues into careers of two State Department Arabists, William A. Stoltzfus and Talcott Seelye (p. 119). Of more than one hundred Arabic language specialists Foreign Service Institute (FSI) trained between 1947 and 1975, only two were born in Middle East. Kaplan points to them as the unintended result of FSI Arabic program, as though were many like them. modern were American he would have reader believe, and as group they were no more elite than Foreign Service as whole. Many whom he strives to make and just don't fit description, and his effort is fraught with internal contradictions: on page 154 William Stoltzfus, Richard Parker, James Akins, and Andrew Killgore are a courtly and Waspy elite, but later Akins is not courtly and polite...not rich WASP but poor Quaker (p. 172). Elsewhere, Parker is an army brat who can only afford Kansas State (p. 118) and Killgore is returned to his humble origins on Alabama farm (p. 156). In fact, those trained after FSI established its Arabic program in 1947 were from diverse backgrounds, and most graduated from state universities or private colleges: their common denominator was linguistic talent. Kaplan asserts that true middle-class democratization of State Department occurred in eighties, but elite had faded away decades earlier. In tracing their history, he overlooks some pioneers. He argues that first Arabist was Eli Smith, William Hodgson (pp. 27 and 91). But Smith's work was Biblical translation, while Hodgson was State Department linguist, who worked as translator and treaty negotiator. He studied Arabic and Turkish in region, and his experience is overwhelmingly more analogous to that of modern Arabists. Moreover, two and few academics have written studies of Hodgson, and Foreign Service Journal has recounted his story. Far more Middle East hands would be aware of Hodgson than of Smith. first African-American Arabist was Bernard Johns in the early 70s, but Terence Todman, who studied Arabic at FSI in 1960. first woman assigned to serve in Araby was April Glaspie in 1967, but Winifred Weislogel, who served in Tripoli in 1961 and studied at FSI in Tangier in 1963. While being critical of Glaspie, Kaplan never discusses difficulties women of her generation faced in State Department. In 1942, Kaplan notes, when Loy Henderson headed Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (NEA), diplomat of day observed: The Near East! Nothing ever happens there (p. 90). In 1942, United States was staging full-scale invasion of North Africa; statement, however, was made in 1942, but in 1938 to Evan Wilson, member of US Foreign Service. Loy Henderson, who never studied Arabic, was Arabists' role model, as Kaplan asserts. …