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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 41
Page
... Mission To work for Syria is to work among a splendid people in the land which gave us Christianity, the one faith which can make a man or a nation an uplifting force in the world. —Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands For this cruel land ...
... Mission To work for Syria is to work among a splendid people in the land which gave us Christianity, the one faith which can make a man or a nation an uplifting force in the world. —Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands For this cruel land ...
Page
... Mission work defines the American Arabist, much as imperialism defines the British Arabist. Truly there are few social species as authentically American as the missionary and, by extension, the missionaryArabist: a person concerned less ...
... Mission work defines the American Arabist, much as imperialism defines the British Arabist. Truly there are few social species as authentically American as the missionary and, by extension, the missionaryArabist: a person concerned less ...
Page
... mission work abroad.* Compared with the dangerous and largely unsuccessful labors among the native Indian population, the Congregationalists assumed that abroad “the difficulties” would be “the least,” the competition for souls less ...
... mission work abroad.* Compared with the dangerous and largely unsuccessful labors among the native Indian population, the Congregationalists assumed that abroad “the difficulties” would be “the least,” the competition for souls less ...
Page
... mission work guaranteed instant status. In 1810, only two years after the Haystack Incident, collegians and parishioners had collected enough funds to organize an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, dominated by ...
... mission work guaranteed instant status. In 1810, only two years after the Haystack Incident, collegians and parishioners had collected enough funds to organize an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, dominated by ...
Page
... missions, even after it became clear that in the Middle East, at least, the majority of Moslems stood absolutely no chance of being converted. But by 1830 the Boston Mission Board was desperate enough that it targeted an obscure sect of ...
... missions, even after it became clear that in the Middle East, at least, the majority of Moslems stood absolutely no chance of being converted. But by 1830 the Boston Mission Board was desperate enough that it targeted an obscure sect of ...
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 | |
Other editions - View all
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