Power, faith, and fantasy
Subtitle: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the present
By: Michael B. Oren.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W.W.Norton & Co.; W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2007
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 778
ISBN-13: 9780393058260
Subjects: Middle East -- Foreign relations -- United States; United States -- Foreign relations -- Middle East
Description: 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.
Notes: Color maps on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [685]-733) and index.
Table of contents: title: Chronology; title: Prologue: A passage to glory; title: Introduction: Recovering a pivotal past; title: 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; title: Pt. 2: The Middle East and antebellum America. Confluence and conflict ; Manifest Middle Eastern destiny ; Under American eyes; title: Pt. 3: The Civil War and Reconstruction. Fission ; Rebs and Yanks on the Nile ; The trumpet that never calls retreat ; American onslaught ; Resurgence; title: Pt. 4: The age of imperialism. Empires at dawn ; Imperial piety ; Imperial myths ; A region renamed and reordered; title: 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; title: 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; title: Pt. 7: In search of Pax Americana. Harmony and hegemony ; The thirty years' war; title: Epilogue: A profound and visceral gratitude.