★ A history of America's relations with the Middle East over more than 200 years;
★ An analysis of why the Middle East has had such a profound and far-reaching impact on America's strategic and foreign policies.
[About the Author] Michael B. Oren is a scholar and soldier, a PhD and a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces. A historian born in the United States, he was educated at Princeton University and Columbia University. He has served as a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown universities, and is a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.
In Israel, Dr. Oren served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and fought as a paratrooper in the Lebanon War. During the Gulf War, he served as a liaison to the U.S. Sixth Fleet. He was a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces during the Second Lebanon War and Israel's January 2009 operation in Gaza, and an adviser to Israel's delegation to the United Nations. From 2009 to 2013, he served as Israel's ambassador to the United States.
[About the Book] Why, and in what ways, is America so deeply entangled in Middle Eastern affairs?
Why has the Middle East, so far from the United States geographically, had such a profound and far-reaching impact on American strategy and foreign policy?
Historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael B. Oren uses three words, "power," "faith," and "fantasy," to explain this costly fixation. He also recounts America's relations with the Middle East from its independence in 1776 onward.
Almost from the moment America won its independence, American merchant ships, no longer protected by the British Navy, were repeatedly attacked by Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. The U.S. government built a navy and used military force, diplomacy, and financial resources to protect American commercial interests and citizens abroad. It also supported America's grand global strategy, seeking to reshape the Middle East to better serve American interests.
Protestant missionaries were among the first Americans to travel to the Middle East. Although few Muslims converted, the missionaries established numerous American educational institutions there, supporting America's grand ambitions to bring enlightenment and democracy to the region.
In turn, the Middle East's exotic allure and romantic tales entered American literature and public consciousness through politicians, merchants, soldiers, missionaries, explorers, and travel writers. They have endured in American popular culture, shaping ordinary Americans' impressions of the Middle East.
Drawing on a wealth of government documents, private letters, and memoirs by merchants, missionaries, and travelers, and illustrated with dozens of rare historical images, the author vividly and meticulously recounts America's interactions over more than 200 years with this dynamic and turbulent region.
