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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... French invention,” Bill explains. Bill's father and mother met in an orphanage in Sidon, a Mediterranean coastal town south of Beirut, where both were doing humanitarian relief work after World War I. And it was in Beirut, after World ...
... French invention,” Bill explains. Bill's father and mother met in an orphanage in Sidon, a Mediterranean coastal town south of Beirut, where both were doing humanitarian relief work after World War I. And it was in Beirut, after World ...
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... French and Indian War (there is a trail named for him in a state park west of Pittsburgh). Her grandfather, Andrew Robertson Byerly, was a Union captain in the Civil War. Her father, the Reverend Robert Crane Byerly, was born in the ...
... French and Indian War (there is a trail named for him in a state park west of Pittsburgh). Her grandfather, Andrew Robertson Byerly, was a Union captain in the Civil War. Her father, the Reverend Robert Crane Byerly, was born in the ...
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... French Catholic missionaries had been in Syria, working with the Maronites for 150 years before the New England Protestants arrived. It was thus not surprising that the French government and the Maronite hierarchy reacted angrily to ...
... French Catholic missionaries had been in Syria, working with the Maronites for 150 years before the New England Protestants arrived. It was thus not surprising that the French government and the Maronite hierarchy reacted angrily to ...
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... French Mandate of 1920 had given Lebanon a separate legal identity, until the present Syrian state came into being after World War II, the missionaries continued to think of Lebanon as Syrian territory. *See Thomas's introduction to The ...
... French Mandate of 1920 had given Lebanon a separate legal identity, until the present Syrian state came into being after World War II, the missionaries continued to think of Lebanon as Syrian territory. *See Thomas's introduction to The ...
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... French schools had not done. To do this, Arabic, naturally, rather than English would have to be the language of instruction. The Boston Mission Board had always emphasized the importance of Arabic in its battle to win Middle Eastern ...
... French schools had not done. To do this, Arabic, naturally, rather than English would have to be the language of instruction. The Boston Mission Board had always emphasized the importance of Arabic in its battle to win Middle Eastern ...
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