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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... military alliance system of the former Yugoslavia, American military intervention against Serbia has always been less feasible than decisive active against Iraq. Nevertheless, such mitigating factors did not stop three Foreign Service ...
... military alliance system of the former Yugoslavia, American military intervention against Serbia has always been less feasible than decisive active against Iraq. Nevertheless, such mitigating factors did not stop three Foreign Service ...
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... military base in Ethiopia. Bill would take the day off before each embassy dinner party to go into the desert to shoot guinea fowl. We had a lot of liquor, though. We were drunk much of the time,” laughs Janet, openly exaggerating. Bill ...
... military base in Ethiopia. Bill would take the day off before each embassy dinner party to go into the desert to shoot guinea fowl. We had a lot of liquor, though. We were drunk much of the time,” laughs Janet, openly exaggerating. Bill ...
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... military attachés, intelligence agents, or even scholaradventurers. Arabists also represent the most exotic and controversial vestige of the East Coast Establishment. Francis Fukuyama, a former member of the State Department's Policy ...
... military attachés, intelligence agents, or even scholaradventurers. Arabists also represent the most exotic and controversial vestige of the East Coast Establishment. Francis Fukuyama, a former member of the State Department's Policy ...
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... military support to the Maronites' principal enemy, the Druze, a heretical Moslem sect that also lived in the Lebanese mountains. The French reacted to the Turkish provocation by increasing their support for the Maronites. This caused ...
... military support to the Maronites' principal enemy, the Druze, a heretical Moslem sect that also lived in the Lebanese mountains. The French reacted to the Turkish provocation by increasing their support for the Maronites. This caused ...
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... military intelligence in Cairo, was preparing to sail down the Red Sea to the Meccan port of Jidda in order to sound out Sherif Hussein and his sons about an alliance with the British, the aim of which was to drive the proGerman Turks ...
... military intelligence in Cairo, was preparing to sail down the Red Sea to the Meccan port of Jidda in order to sound out Sherif Hussein and his sons about an alliance with the British, the aim of which was to drive the proGerman Turks ...
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