The Arabists: The Romance of an American EliteFree Press, 1993 - 333 pages Here is the untold story of an inbred, gifted, and powerful elite of families and friends who dominated America's relations with the Middle East for over a century. Known to Foreign Service colleagues as "the Arabists", these were the men and women who had spent much of their lives, usually with their families, living in the Arab world as diplomats, military attaches, intelligence agents, and educators. Descended from the missionaries, scholars, and explorers who first ventured into the region - an offshoot of the WASP elite that ruled America during the nineteenth century - the Arabists were an exclusive caste linked by complex social, institutional, and family ties. Thoroughly at home in Arab cultures and often enjoying relations of longstanding intimacy with the monarchs and ruling elites of Arab countries, these American expatriates lived a charmed lifestyle that has become a source of intense nostalgia among the Arabists themselves as well as a symbol of their romance with Arab culture and increasing isolation from American society and interests. The Arabists dominated American policy and shaped our perception of the Arab world throughout the colonial and interwar periods. But after World War II, the diplomatic corps began to change, reflecting the country's new ethnic and social diversity. Kaplan describes the impact of this change within the State Department, showing how the advent of Irish Catholics, Jews, and Harvard-trained regional experts created internal pressures that slowly loosened the Arabists' grip on Middle East diplomacy in the postwar period. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and other official and private sources, Kaplan reconstructs the hundred-year history of theArabist elite, and traces their decline against the background of this social transformation. |
From inside the book
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Page 90
... early as April 1942 that the American - Soviet alliance against Hitler would be a passing phenomenon , which would break apart the moment the war was over . In early 1942 with Americans - particularly President Roosevelt - en- thralled ...
... early as April 1942 that the American - Soviet alliance against Hitler would be a passing phenomenon , which would break apart the moment the war was over . In early 1942 with Americans - particularly President Roosevelt - en- thralled ...
Page 192
... early 1970s with April Glaspie and other Arabist FSOs , puts it this way : “ Look , you sit for twenty - one months in a classroom learning Arabic . Your teacher is a Lebanese or a Palestinian . At night or on weekends you socialize ...
... early 1970s with April Glaspie and other Arabist FSOs , puts it this way : “ Look , you sit for twenty - one months in a classroom learning Arabic . Your teacher is a Lebanese or a Palestinian . At night or on weekends you socialize ...
Page 265
... early missionary - explorers . His critics on the State Department's policy - planning staff and on the National Security Council in the early 1980s - Reagan administration ap- pointees , for the most part - were never impressed ...
... early missionary - explorers . His critics on the State Department's policy - planning staff and on the National Security Council in the early 1980s - Reagan administration ap- pointees , for the most part - were never impressed ...
Contents
Three generations Three wars Three marriages | 1 |
Dream | 11 |
Home to Lebanon | 13 |
Copyright | |
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Akins ambassador to Saudi American April Glaspie Arab country Arab nationalism Arab world Arabists Aviv Baghdad Bayard Dodge became Beirut Bill Stoltzfus Bliss British cables Cairo career Christian Cluverius colleagues College Coon Crane culture Custis Damascus David Department desert Doughty Eagleton Eastern Egypt Eli Smith Falashas Feisal Foreign Service French FSOs Glaspie's going Hermann Eilts Hume Horan Iran Iranian Iraq Iraq's Iraqi Islam Israel Israeli Jerry Weaver Jerusalem Jewish Jews Jidda Kelly Khartoum Killgore Kissinger knew Kuwait later Lawrence Lawrence's learn Arabic Lebanon lived Loy Henderson Maronites Middle East military mission missionaries Moslem NEA assistant secretary never officer Palestine Palestinian Parker peace Philby political president Protestant regime Roy Atherton Sadat Saddam Saudi Arabia says Shiite Sisco Six-Day War Soviet staff Sterner Sudan Sudanese Syria Talcott Seelye U.S. ambassador U.S. diplomats U.S. embassy United Veliotes wanted Washington Western Wiley William Yemen