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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... going to excel—just like the Palestinian children I knew in Kuwait.” Given the circumstances of their lives to that point, for Bill and Janet not to have sympathized with the Palestinians would have been a thing inhuman. Janet wants to ...
... going to excel—just like the Palestinian children I knew in Kuwait.” Given the circumstances of their lives to that point, for Bill and Janet not to have sympathized with the Palestinians would have been a thing inhuman. Janet wants to ...
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... Going abroad was a way to improve one's social status, which in the clergymen's case had already begun slipping as the first heavy waves of European immigrants began arriving in New England, changing the face of the countryside ...
... Going abroad was a way to improve one's social status, which in the clergymen's case had already begun slipping as the first heavy waves of European immigrants began arriving in New England, changing the face of the countryside ...
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... going on. The predilection of certain upperclass Englishmen toward eccentricity and playacting lent itself well to this endeavor. This is why Rudyard Kipling's Kim, a story about spying and going native in the Northwest Frontier of ...
... going on. The predilection of certain upperclass Englishmen toward eccentricity and playacting lent itself well to this endeavor. This is why Rudyard Kipling's Kim, a story about spying and going native in the Northwest Frontier of ...
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... going native, warning that “the longer one lives in a fabulous ... country, the weaker will become his judgment.” For himself, he declares that “the sun made me an Arab, but never warped me to Orientalism.” Lawrence notes that the ...
... going native, warning that “the longer one lives in a fabulous ... country, the weaker will become his judgment.” For himself, he declares that “the sun made me an Arab, but never warped me to Orientalism.” Lawrence notes that the ...
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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