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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... William A. Stoltzfus, Jr., the former first couple of the United States of America in no less than six Arab countries: Yemen, Bahrein, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait. Nowadays, with an oriental carpet shop in many a ...
... William A. Stoltzfus, Jr., the former first couple of the United States of America in no less than six Arab countries: Yemen, Bahrein, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait. Nowadays, with an oriental carpet shop in many a ...
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... William A. Stoltzfus III, was the first nonArab baby born in the local hospital, built by American missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Church almost half a century before. Bill's days were taken up with Palestinian refugees applying for ...
... William A. Stoltzfus III, was the first nonArab baby born in the local hospital, built by American missionaries of the Dutch Reformed Church almost half a century before. Bill's days were taken up with Palestinian refugees applying for ...
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... true beginning. In 1808, on the campus of Williams College, five students led by one Samuel J. Mills, Jr., met and prayed beside a dry haystack during an electric storm to demonstrate their belief in Christ. The event, known.
... true beginning. In 1808, on the campus of Williams College, five students led by one Samuel J. Mills, Jr., met and prayed beside a dry haystack during an electric storm to demonstrate their belief in Christ. The event, known.
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... Williams and Middlebury (and soon Hamilton and Amherst), in addition to theological seminaries like Andover and Union, were producing the kind of supremely selfconfident and selfsacrificing young men for whom a life abroad in mission ...
... Williams and Middlebury (and soon Hamilton and Amherst), in addition to theological seminaries like Andover and Union, were producing the kind of supremely selfconfident and selfsacrificing young men for whom a life abroad in mission ...
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... William, Jr. Less than two weeks after her husband's return, she died of fever. William Thomson remained in the Middle East, but it was not as a missionary but as a travel writer, with the publication of a bestselling adventure, The ...
... William, Jr. Less than two weeks after her husband's return, she died of fever. William Thomson remained in the Middle East, but it was not as a missionary but as a travel writer, with the publication of a bestselling adventure, The ...
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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Common terms and phrases
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