American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945

by Douglas Little

Overview

Douglas Little explores the stormy American relationship with the Middle East from World War II through the war in Iraq, focusing particularly on the complex and often inconsistent attitudes and interests that helped put the United States on a collision course with radical Islam early in the new millennium. After documenting the persistence of "orientalist" stereotypes in American popular culture, Little examines oil, Israel, and other aspects of U.S. policy. He concludes that a peculiar blend of arrogance and ignorance has led American officials to overestimate their ability to shape events in the Middle East from 1945 through the present day, and that it has been a driving force behind the Iraq war. For this updated third edition, Little covers events through 2007, including a new chapter on the Bush Doctrine, demonstrating that in many important ways, George W. Bush's Middle Eastern policies mark a sharp break with the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807877616
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/15/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
Lexile:	800L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Douglas Little is professor of history at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is author of Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition
What Went Wrong?: Wake Me When September Ends     ix
Acknowledgments     xiii
Abbreviations     xvii
Introduction: Gideon's Band in the Holy Land: We're Not in Kansas Anymore     1
Orientalism, American Style: The Middle East in the Mind of America     9
Opening the Door: Business, Diplomacy, and America's Stake in Middle East Oil     43
The Making of a Special Relationship: America and Israel     77
A Tale of Four Doctrines: U.S. National Security, the Soviet Threat, and the Middle East     117
Sympathy for the Devil?: America, Nasser, and Arab Revolutionary Nationalism     157
Modernizing the Middle East: From Reform to Revolution in Iraq, Libya, and Iran     193
Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome: Waging Limited War from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf     229
Opportunities Lost and Found: The United States and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process     267
Not Your Father's Persian Gulf War: The Bush Doctrine, Iraq, and Radical Islam     307
Notes     343
Bibliography     393
Index     421

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Little provides literary flair, both in his references to fiction and in his own writing style. . . . A solid collection of essays dealing with multiple facets of U.S. relations with the Middle East and offers a bold and simple thesis about American attitudes toward the region.—Journal of Cold War Studies



Little's detailed and well-documented chapters are very much in the manner of Twain, offering an ironic description of American thought and action regarding the Middle East. Not a bad thing, that.—Foreign Affairs



A study of revolutions, Middle East-style. . . . It is remarkable how much of the inside story [Little] has been able to obtain. . . . Little's vigorously argued, thematic account is sound. . . . [This book is] aimed at attracting a wide readership, which [it] certainly deserves. . . . The book deals in an illuminating way with modernization and Westernization . . . and, equally, with the reaction in the Middle East against one or the other, or both.—Times Literary Supplement



This is a commendable work to all concerned with the Middle East.—Virginia Quarterly Review



An excellent resource for students of the Middle East.—H-Levant



Seldom has a book been more timely or essential than Douglas Little's essays on American policy in the Middle East. . . . Little offers some refreshing clarity. He has combined broad reading and research with sober judgment to help readers understand the pattern of American Middle East policy.—Journal of American History



Little's book is a valuable contribution to scholarly literature on U.S. involvement in the Middle East. . . . General readers will appreciate its lively prose, broad narrative sweep, and freedom from academic jargon. . . . An impressive achievement.—Reviews in American History



"What emerges clearly from [Little's account] is how little Washington understood the consequences of foisting its cold war obsessions upon a region with other things on its mind. . . . [An] entertainingly written series of essays.—The Nation



A wonderfully rich and well-written narrative of American involvement in the Middle East since 1945. . . . [Readers] will ultimately find [Little's] account of American misperceptions of the Middle East and Islam convincing and will recognize that 'they don't hate us' for being benevolent and democratic and fair; rather, those that do 'hate us,' do so for decades of policies promoting exploitation of cheap oil (often through covert intervention) and Soviet containment rather than Arab-Muslim development, as well as American support for a strong Jewish state, all at the expense of everyday Arabs and Muslims.—The Review of Politics



The timing of this book could not be better—it deals directly and effectively with American misconceptions about the Middle East, how they originated, and how they are linked to other attitudes. . . . An excellent resource for both professional and general readers. . . . A first-rate book, persuasively written, on a very important subject. . . . Essential.—Choice

Editorial Reviews

A study of revolutions, Middle East-style. . . . It is remarkable how much of the inside story [Little] has been able to obtain.
—"Times Literary Supplement"

Doug Little has produced not just a distinguished study, but perhaps the best book yet on the United States and the Middle East.
—Robert J. McMahon, University of Florida

Seldom has a book been more timely or essential than Douglas Little's essays on American policy in the Middle East.
—"Journal of American History"

This is a commendable work to all concerned with the Middle East.
—"Virginia Quarterly Review"

"Little provides literary flair, both in his references to fiction and in his own writing style. . . . A solid collection of essays dealing with multiple facets of U.S. relations with the Middle East and offers a bold and simple thesis about American attitudes toward the region."
-- "Journal of Cold War Studies"

From the Publisher