Arabists: The Romance of an American EliteSimon and Schuster, 1995 M07 1 - 368 pages A tight-knit group closely linked by intermarriage as well as class and old school ties, the “Arabists” were men and women who spent much of their lives living and working in the Arab world as diplomats, military attaches, intelligence agents, scholar-adventurers, and teachers. As such, the Arabists exerted considerable influence both as career diplomats and as bureaucrats within the State Department from the early nineteenth century to the present. But over time, as this work shows, the group increasingly lost touch with a rapidly changing American society, growing both more insular and headstrong and showing a marked tendency to assert the Arab point of view. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and other official and private sources, Kaplan reconstructs the 100-year history of the Arabist elite, demonstrating their profound influence on American attitudes toward the Middle East, and tracing their decline as an influx of ethnic and regional specialists has transformed the State Department and challenged the power of the old elite. |
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... States. Dept. of State. Bureau for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs— Biography. 4.Orientalists—United States—Biography. I. Title. DS63.2.U5K35 1993 327.730174927—dc20 934321 CIP For my wife MARIA and my son MICHAEL Contents.
... States. Dept. of State. Bureau for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs— Biography. 4.Orientalists—United States—Biography. I. Title. DS63.2.U5K35 1993 327.730174927—dc20 934321 CIP For my wife MARIA and my son MICHAEL Contents.
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... eastern rugs may not signify much. But in this house the rugs are grand, and set, as they are, amid Byzantine crosses from Ethiopia, copperware from Iran, royal Arabic seals from Bahrein, a brass chest and a tall, exquisite coffeepot ...
... eastern rugs may not signify much. But in this house the rugs are grand, and set, as they are, amid Byzantine crosses from Ethiopia, copperware from Iran, royal Arabic seals from Bahrein, a brass chest and a tall, exquisite coffeepot ...
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... Eastern Christians were no less in need of Christ than the Moslems. If anything, they needed him more. The very impossibility of converting the Moslems—or the Eastern Jews, for that matter—forced the missionaries to accept these two ...
... Eastern Christians were no less in need of Christ than the Moslems. If anything, they needed him more. The very impossibility of converting the Moslems—or the Eastern Jews, for that matter—forced the missionaries to accept these two ...
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... eastern Turkey. They slept in stables, amid the horses and the manure. By summer Smith and Dwight were in Tiflis, in Georgia, where Smith contracted cholera. Too weak to mount a horse, Smith rode behind Dwight in an oxcart as the pair ...
... eastern Turkey. They slept in stables, amid the horses and the manure. By summer Smith and Dwight were in Tiflis, in Georgia, where Smith contracted cholera. Too weak to mount a horse, Smith rode behind Dwight in an oxcart as the pair ...
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... eastern Turkey, before starting out overland. They also brought along their own tent and cooking utensils. Just as Eliza Thomson was giving birth under miserable conditions in Jerusalem, so was Charlotte Perkins in Tabriz. Charlotte ...
... eastern Turkey, before starting out overland. They also brought along their own tent and cooking utensils. Just as Eliza Thomson was giving birth under miserable conditions in Jerusalem, so was Charlotte Perkins in Tabriz. Charlotte ...
Contents
Aggrieved Area Experts | |
Mugged by Reality | |
Horan of Arabia | |
Indiana Jones | |
Debacle | |
The Icy Eyes That Had Contemplated Nineveh | |
Cowering in a Dark Alley | |
Hostages to Idealism | |
Reality | |
Mr Foreign Service | |
Old Hands | |
Never a Dull Moment | |
Redemption | |
A New Species? | |
Bibliography | |
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Akins American missionaries antiSemitism April Glaspie Arab country Arab nationalism Arab world ArabIsraeli Arabists Aviv Baghdad became Beirut Bill Stoltzfus Bliss British cables Cairo career Christian Cluverius colleagues College Congregationalist Coon Crane culture Custis Damascus David Department Department’s desert Doughty Eagleton Eastern Egypt Eli Smith expatriates Falashas Feisal Foreign Service French FSOs Glaspie’s going Hermann Eilts Hume Horan Iran Iraq Iraq’s Iraqi Islam Israel Israeli Jerry Weaver Jerusalem Jewish Jews Jidda Kelly Khartoum Killgore Kissinger Kissinger’s knew Kuwait language Lawrence Lawrence’s learn Arabic Lebanon lived Loy Henderson Maronites Mesopotamia Middle East military mission Moslem NEA assistant secretary never officer Operation Moses Palestine Palestinian Parker peace Philby political president Protestant Roy Atherton Sadat Saddam Saudi Arabia says Seelye’s Shiite Sisco SixDay Soviet Sterner Sudan Sudanese Syria Talcott Seelye U.S. ambassador U.S. diplomats U.S. embassy United University Veliotes Washington Western Wiley William Yemen