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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... political officer. For other Americans Syria in the 1950s was the dark side of the moon, an unstable netherworld of chilling coups and political incorrigibility. For Bill and Janet it was akin to a homecoming. Bill had grown up in ...
... political officer. For other Americans Syria in the 1950s was the dark side of the moon, an unstable netherworld of chilling coups and political incorrigibility. For Bill and Janet it was akin to a homecoming. Bill had grown up in ...
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... political conflict between American Jewish lobby groups and diplomats like himself cannot be denied—and is something that he, quite candidly, still has strong feelings about—it is nevertheless very unfortunate. To be at odds with ...
... political conflict between American Jewish lobby groups and diplomats like himself cannot be denied—and is something that he, quite candidly, still has strong feelings about—it is nevertheless very unfortunate. To be at odds with ...
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... political philosopher, says Arabists are “a sociological phenomenon, an elite within an elite, who have been more systemically wrong than any other area specialists in the diplomatic corps. This is because Arabists not only take on the ...
... political philosopher, says Arabists are “a sociological phenomenon, an elite within an elite, who have been more systemically wrong than any other area specialists in the diplomatic corps. This is because Arabists not only take on the ...
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... political power than with the doing of good deeds in order to improve the world and to be loved by lessfortunate others. The British sought to dominate, to acquire a culture and a terrain as one acquires a rare and beautiful book.* But ...
... political power than with the doing of good deeds in order to improve the world and to be loved by lessfortunate others. The British sought to dominate, to acquire a culture and a terrain as one acquires a rare and beautiful book.* But ...
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... political conflict caused by the rise of Arab nationalism and encompassing four wars with Israel—these exquisite memories of a Lebanon that no longer exists, and in a sense may never have existed, seem distant, trivial, and unreal. Yet ...
... political conflict caused by the rise of Arab nationalism and encompassing four wars with Israel—these exquisite memories of a Lebanon that no longer exists, and in a sense may never have existed, seem distant, trivial, and unreal. Yet ...
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