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

Douglas Little (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807827371 | ISBN-13: 978-0807827376 | Publication Date: October 23, 2002

With the events of September 2001, America's relationship with the Middle East exploded to the forefront of our national consciousness. Looking back more than a half-century, Douglas Little offers valuable, historical context for anyone seeking a better understanding of this complicated relationship. He explores the encounters between the United States and the Middle East since 1945, focusing particularly on the complex, sometimes inconsistent attitudes and interests that have shaped U.S. relations in the region.

Little begins by exposing the persistence of "orientalist" stereotypes in American popular culture and then examines U.S. policy toward the Middle East from many angles. Chapters focus on America's increasing dependence on petroleum; U.S.-Israeli relations; the threat of communism; the rise of revolutionary nationalist movements in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Libya; the futility of U.S. military and covert intervention; and the unsuccessful attempt to broker a "peace-for-land" settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The overarching theme of the book is that a combination of American omnipotence and profound cultural misunderstanding ensured that the United States would encounter trouble in the Middle East after 1945 and continues to bedevil the relationship between these vastly different cultures to the present day.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In contrast to many post-September 11 studies, which seek to satisfy the demand for instant analysis, Little's fascinating book is based on extensive and long-range research into the history of U.S.-Mideastern relations. Informative and well balanced, this work of diplomatic and political history raises provocative questions about that history that shed an intriguing light not only on the events of September 11 but on the past 60 years of American encounters with the Middle East. Little's overarching theme is the complex and sometimes inconsistent attitudes and interests that determined U.S. policy in the region. The author contends that American political activity has been hampered by profound cultural misunderstanding, resulting in unforeseen and unintended negative consequences. In eight invigorating chapters, Clark University historian Little (Malevolent Neutrality) focuses on the implications of oil, the persistence of racial and cultural stereotypes (whether anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic) and the importance of Israel in American foreign policy. After reviewing all the major episodes, he poses the important question of whether wealth and power have provided America with the moral authority necessary to control the Middle East. Little's own assessment is not entirely positive. His text is highly accessible, yet offers serious and careful analysis. At a time when the U.S. is possibly on the verge of a major military intervention in Iraq, this stimulating book is highly recommended.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

At a time when the U.S. is possibly on the verge of a major military intervention in Iraq, this stimulating book is highly recommended. (Publishers Weekly)

"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

A superb analysis of the U.S. experience in the Middle East since 1945. (Peter L. Hahn, Ohio State University)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (October 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807827371
• ISBN-13: 978-0807827376
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #670,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > History > Africa > Libya

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36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ultimately unsuccessful, May 28, 2003

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[e-mail] (Edmonton, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Hardcover)

Nearly two decades ago, Douglas Little appeared on the diplomatic history scene with a monograph entitled "Malevolent Neutrality," about the United States, the United Kingdom and the origins of the Spanish Civil War. Although much of the book consisted of quarrels and squabbles between the US, the UK and Spain over foreign investors in Spain, the book nevertheless had a certain power. Here was the Spanish Republic desperately trying to preserve its democracy while the US and UK were whining over foreign investment rules, exaggerating Communist and Anarchist influence and imposing the malevolent neutrality of the title. Now Little has come up with a new book with the promising title "American Orientalism." The book consists of eight chapters which look at American images of the Middle East, America's relationship with Middle East Oil, the relationship between America and Israel, National Security and the Soviet Threat, the Nasserist "threat", the idea of modernization, "limited war" in the Gulf from the 1958 Lebanon intervention to the defeat of Afghanistan, and the Arab-Israeli peace process. The book has certain virtues. We certainly get more historical perspective than most discussions of the topic. We learn about the generally condescending and shallow American view of Arabs, usually seen as narrow-minded, backward frustrated fanatics. We learn about how the American government bent or ignored the anti-trust rules so that American oil companies wouldn't be inconvenienced in their exploitation of Arab oil. We learn about the long Arab-Israeli peace process, where Israeli recalcitrance and bad faith is as much a problem as Arab terrorism. We learn about the United States' trust in the "white revolution" in Iran, and the inevitably bad reputation that occurred when the Shah was overthrown by an angry population.

But ultimately this is an unsuccessful book. The first problem is one of evidence. Although Little has looked at around 50 collections of papers and oral histories, restrictive government policies ensures there is little primary evidence after the Johnson administration. A more serious problem is that Little can apparently neither speak nor read Arabic. Stylistically, the chapters themselves, about thirty to forty pages each, are too short for really profound or original discussion of the subject at hand. Yet at the same time various themes, such as the Suez crisis or the Yom Kippur war, keep recurring, so we get repetitive discussions of these matters which at the same time are incomplete. For example, he really doesn't discuss Raymond Garthoff and Richard Ned Lebow's stunning portrayal of Kissinger's irresponsibility in the latter conflict.

There is a larger problem with Little's perspective. He concentrates on government-government relations, about economics and security. There is little on the details about Arab society. We learn that when Ayatollah Khomeini first opposed the Shah in the early sixties, the Shah sharply cracked down and killed a thousand people, with American support. But we learn less about why the White Revolution failed and why the mullahs were the beneficiaries. Other areas do not get the discussion they deserve. The Vincennes affair only gets a paragraph, Little's discussion of Israel's attempts to get nuclear weapons peters out in the early seventies, when they almost certainly succeeded, while his discussion of the 1986 attacks on Libya and the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 are surprisingly superficial and conventional. The discussion of the Lebanese civil war and Israel and America's intervention there tell us appallingly little about its origins. We do not learn that two great democracies supported the squalid, vicious sectarianism of the Maronite Phalange for the most selfish and ignorant of reasons. Nor can one accept Little's view that the Americans were as even-handed in the Arab-Israeli conflict as he argues. For decades Israel has been the United States' main beneficiary of foreign aid, while the United States in the seventies and eighties did much to demonize the PLO as nothing but terrorists.

The most depressing aspect about Muslim societies from Pakistan to Morocco is the way that politics are polarized between corrupt authoritarian governments and religious bigots capable of appalling acts of viciousness. Little tells us little about how this problem arose, and even less how we should solve it. He only provides enough to tell us that our glorious leaders have helped to get us this into this mess, but have no idea of how to get us out of it.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very readable history of U.S. involvement in the mid-east, June 15, 2004

By A Customer

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This review is from: American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Paperback)

I discovered this book when a chapter from it appeared in a collection of readings for a college class on national security. The chapter, "America and Israel: the making of a special relationship" impressed me with its account of the events involving the two countries from before Israel's statehood. I've now read the entire book and find that chapter and another, "Opportunities Lost and Found" dealing with the issue of the Palestinians and attempts to find a way to peace in the area are the best of the volume. To revisit events in a concise, chronological order gave me a new appreciation of the frustrations experienced there in the last 50 years.

Approaching the mid-east on different subjects, be it the oil issue, the Cold War, or the Arab nationalist movements, Little moves right along finding just the right amount of detail to relate. He is able to cover the same period repeatedly from different angles without repeating himself. Each chapter presented a new field of events to be tied into others already described. One comes away with a sense of the complexity of the mid-east. This is what Little is trying to convey.

I did not feel that the author portrayed the United States as "bad" by any means. What he is saying is that the U.S. desire to make things better combined with an often simplistic view of the Orient can easily get the U.S. into trouble. He points out the there is "occidentalism" in the view from the mid-east of the U.S. It's no accident that he discusses Mark Twain's book "Innocents Abroad" in the first chapter and returns to it in the last.

A second important point is that domestic politics can deflect the U.S. from a path it might otherwise follow, particularly in regard to Israel. Over the period covered, there has been no real Arab constituency in the United States, whereas pressure to support Israel has been constant, a fact acknowledged by every U.S. president from Truman on. There is no way the U.S. government can take an even-handed stand. Events described in the book provide evidence that momentary actions which are not interpreted as pro-Israel are all that can be taken by an American administration, because a groundswell of political opposition makes it's continuance impossible.

I've lived through the time period of most of the events described, but I was enlightened by the relationship between them that Little reveals. This is a solid book that will keep your interest throughout. As mentioned, it stood out among the 35 readings for the class I took and the book as a whole did not disappoint.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Admirable attempt, but comes up short, February 2, 2008

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Lee L. (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Paperback)

In American Orientalism, Douglas Little sets out to chronicle America's involvement with the Middle East since 1945. On the whole, Little's work is an informative read, but there are several problems that ultimately keep the book from being successful.

The book is organized thematically, with chapters devoted to oil, the special relationship with Israel, and America's struggle against Arab nationalism, among other subjects. Within each chapter, Little begins around 1945 and works his way up to the Carter administration. Most of the major issues as far as American interests go are covered, and Little handles the topics in a thorough manner. However, there are some problems with the organization of the book. The first chapter deals with American "orientalism." In this chapter, Little discusses the ways in which Arabs have been historically portrayed in America. The chapter feels completely tacked on and does not fit in well with the rest of the book at all. There is an obsession with the magazine National Geographic that borders on the absurd, as if the ways in which the magazine portrayed Arabs somehow affected U.S. policy. It goes without saying that America at times portrays other cultures in a negative way, but this has nothing to do with the bulk of Little's work. A cynic might suggest that Little included this chapter for the sole reason of naming the book after it, which could possibly result in increased book sales among the Edward Said crowd. This is particularly troubling and perhaps hypocritical when Little refers to Yemen as a "backward" land on page 184.

Another issue that arises is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Little does include a chapter on the subject, but it also does not seem to fit along with the rest of the book. Judgement should not necessarily be passed here since many historians treat the issue separately from U.S. involvement in the region during the period, but Little fails in integrating the topic into the rest of the book in a satisfactory manner. Unless an author is willing to devote the appropriate amount of space to an important topic, it should be left out of the book.

Stylistically, Little's writing is very difficult to navigate. His rampant use of passive voice and colloquial language is quite distracting. On numerous occasions Little refers to the President as "the man in the Oval Office, or the State Department as "Foggy Bottom." This might not bother some, but it comes across as unprofessional and informal. It's hard to imagine the final version of this book making it past an editor's desk because in the end, these flaws detract from the effectiveness of the book in a major way. When passive voice or other indices of poor writing show up almost every other paragraph, the book's 328 pages seem particularly long and burdensome.

Some significant faults aside, Little's book is still worth the read. Even though the scope is decidedly smaller, Salim Yaqub's Containing Arab Nationalism is by far a superior piece of research covering the Eisenhower administration and the struggle against Nasser and should be read along with American Orientalism, perhaps first. Readers will also have to look elsewhere for a more complete take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Anglo-American response to it.