Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN 1776, SUDDENLY, AMERICANS WERE ON THEIR OWN..." (more)
Key Phrases: eretz yisrael, restorationist idea, Middle East, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this engaging if unbalanced survey, the author of the acclaimed Six Days of War finds continuity in U.S. relations with the Middle East from the early 19th-century war against the Barbary pirates to today's Iraq war. As America's power grew, he contends, strategic considerations became complicatedby the region's religious significance, especially to the Protestant missionaries whose interests drove U.S. policyin the 19th century and who championed a Jewish state in Palestine long before the Zionist movement took up that cause. Meanwhile, Oren notes, Americans' romantic fantasies about the Muslim world (as expressed in Mideast-themed movies) have repeatedly run aground on stubborn, squalid realities, most recently in the Iraq fiasco. Oren dwells on the pre-WWII era, when U.S.-Mideast relations were of little significance. The postwar period, when these relations were central to world affairs, gets shoehorned into 127 hasty pages, and the emphasis on continuity gives short shrift to the new and crucial role of oil in U.S. policy making. Oren's treatment views this history almost entirely through American eyes; the U.S. comes off as usually well intentioned and idealistic, if often confused and confounded by regional complexities. Oren's is a fluent, comprehensive narrative of two centuries of entanglement, but it's analytically disappointing. Photos. (Jan. 15)
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Robert Kagan

We often hear that Americans know little about other nations; a bigger problem is that we know too little about ourselves, our history and our national character. When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, in particular, we were all born yesterday, unaware of how present policies and attitudes fit into persistent historical patterns. So when a brilliant, lucid historian such as Michael B. Oren does bring the past back to life for us, revealing both what has changed and what has stayed the same, it is a shaft of light in a dark sky.

Today, the conventional view is that George W. Bush took the United States on a radical departure when he declared a policy to transform the Middle East and that, as soon as he leaves office, U.S. policy will return to an alleged tradition of realism, rooted in the hard-headed pursuit of tangible national interests. This is both bad history and bad prophecy, as Oren shows in Power, Faith, and Fantasy, a series of fascinating and beautifully written stories about individual Americans over the past four centuries and their contact with Middle Eastern cultures.

As a historian, Oren is more storyteller than grand theorist, so as a study of the complex and contradictory motives of American behavior, his book is a bit thin. Nevertheless, three powerful themes emerge from his tales: that from the Founders onward, Americans have repeatedly tried to transform Arab and Muslim peoples -- politically, spiritually and economically -- to conform to liberal and Christian principles; that since the days of the Puritans, many Americans have been obsessed with the idea of "restoring" Palestine to the Jews; and that from the colonial era to the present, many (and perhaps most) Americans have regarded Islam as a barbaric, violent and despotic religion. Whether these purposes and perceptions have been intelligent or misguided, based on reality or fantasy, Oren shows that they have been the dominant features of our foreign policy tradition in the Middle East.

Oren demonstrates that suspicion and hostility toward Islam are almost as old as the nation. John Quincy Adams called it a "fanatic and fraudulent" religion, founded on "the natural hatred of Mussulmen towards the infidel."

This was partly religious prejudice, of course, but that prejudice was reinforced by unfortunate experience. In the perilous early years of the republic, the Muslim Barbary powers preyed on American shipping and captured, tortured and enslaved hundreds of innocent men and women. When John Adams and Thomas Jefferson implored the pasha of Tripoli to stop, Oren recounts, the pasha's emissary insisted that the Koran made it the "right and duty" of Muslims "to make war upon" whichever infidels "they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners." George Washington raged, "Would to Heaven we had a navy to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-existence." And Congress did create a navy in the 1790s primarily to crush the Barbary powers and protect American traders and missionaries. President Jefferson -- so often mislabeled as an idealist, pacifist and isolationist -- eagerly launched the war and ordered the permanent stationing of U.S. nav!

al forces thousands of miles from the nation's shores.

As Oren relates, the modest number of 19th-century Americans who lived in the Middle East largely considered Islam -- in the words of a former Confederate officer hired to improve the Egyptian army -- a religion "born of the sword," one that was "opposed to enlightenment" and crushed "all independence of thought and action." They found the oppression of Muslim women appalling. Being Americans, they thought the best antidote was a thorough transformation of culture and society. Protestant missionaries utterly failed to convert Muslims to Christianity, but they did work to spread the "gospel of Americanism": liberalism, technology and democracy.

Over the next century, American politicians and policymakers repeatedly imagined they could liberalize a people who seemed to them bursting with "democratic aspirations," as one New Dealer put it in 1943. This may have been hubris, but if so, it was an enduring hubris. Oren quotes a mid-19th-century Arab guide warning a missionary: "You Americans think that you can do everything . . . that money can buy or that strength can accomplish. But you cannot conquer Almighty God." Yet a century later, Harry S. Truman insisted, "God has created us and brought us to our present position of power . . . for some great purpose. . . . It is given to us to defend the spiritual values . . . against the vast forces of evil that seek to destroy them."

No act of international social engineering was more audacious than American support for the establishment of a Jewish state in the middle of an implacably hostile Arab world. But this idea, too, had deep roots. The earliest members of the "Israel lobby" were the Puritan settlers, who even before they reached America had petitioned the Dutch government to "transport Izraell's sons and daughters . . . to the Land promised their forefathers . . . for an everlasting Inheritance." Their prominent heirs included John Adams, who imagined "a hundred thousand Israelites" conquering Palestine; Lincoln's secretary of state, William Henry Seward; and, a century later, Woodrow Wilson, who delighted in the thought that he might "be able to help restore the Holy Land to its people." Thus, President Truman felt a deep sense of historical and religious destiny when he recognized the newly created state of Israel in May 1948, comparing himself to the ancient Persian king who also had repatria!

ted the Jewish exiles and helped rebuild a Judean state. "I am Cyrus," Truman crowed. "I am Cyrus!"

Few acts in the history of U.S. foreign policy have been less in accord with "realist" principles. Oren, an Israeli historian whose previous book was the bestselling Six Days of War, shows that U.S. backing for the establishment of Israel was rooted in religious convictions going back more than four centuries. Americans' response to the enormity of the Holocaust helped transform old Puritan dreams into reality. But even so, the essential element here was the rise of the United States to global predominance; it is doubtful that any other country -- including Great Britain, which ruled Palestine after World War I -- would have placed religious conviction and moral sentiment above selfish and practical interests.

Critics from World War I onward warned that American support for a Jewish state would produce unending war, severely damage America's otherwise amicable relations with the Muslim world and, after the discovery of massive deposits of Middle Eastern oil in the 1930s, endanger access to this vital commodity. Saudi Arabia's pro-American first king, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, flatly warned Franklin D. Roosevelt that the "Jews have no right to Palestine" and that Arabs would die fighting to resist a Jewish state. When the typically American president spoke of the horrors of the Holocaust, the typically Arab king questioned the fairness of making "the innocent bystander," Palestine's Arabs, pay for the crimes of others. If 3 million Jews had been murdered in Poland, ibn Saud reasoned, then there was now room there for 3 million more. Many Muslims' sentiments have not changed over the past six decades.

And neither have those of many Americans. Despite all the crises of the past years, including the present war in Iraq, Oren predicts that the United States will continue "to pursue the traditional patterns of its Middle East involvement." Policymakers "will press on with their civic mission as mediators and liberators in the area and strive for a pax Americana." American "churches and evangelist groups will still seek to save the region spiritually." And Americans will regard the region as both "mysterious" and "menacing," as they have for centuries, and will seek to transform it in their own image. Many today may want to disagree, but they will have to wrestle first with the long history of American behavior that Oren has so luminously portrayed.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 778 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton; 1st edition (January 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393058263
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058260
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #233,870 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview---at least up through 1948, February 18, 2007

By	Marc E. Nicholson (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Oren's book is both scholarly and very entertaining. That's usually a difficult combination to achieve, but one made easier for him by the dearth of previous books comprehensively covering U.S. relations with the Middle East since 1776. So there are plenty of "wow's", "really's" and "heh, I never imagined that's" in this book. They make it a lot of fun. But, though they are entertaining, this is also a very serious book. The "gee-whiz" aspect merely reveals how little most of us knew about an American engagement with the Middle East which began well before the epoch when American oil drillers struck it rich in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s.

Those previous 150 years of history are well worth knowing. And they inform today, to include the fact that the current evangelical Christian romance with Israel dates not from the last 20 years or so, but has been a waxing and waning phenomenon for 150 years depending on the strength of religious revivalism in America. That insight alone, which takes up a considerable part of the book, makes it well worth reading.

The last fifth of the book is disappointing, but Mr. Oren is an honest man and in his preface practically tells you that it will be and that he really did not want to write it: it is the history of the Middle East from about 1950 on. He doesn't feel he has adequate (declassified government document) sources. It has a sort of breathless, once-over- lightly perfunctory approach suggesting he just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. It also unhappily gives vent to two failures of objectivity on his part as an Israeli author who otherwise plays the history of Israeli/Arab conflicts remarkably straight: 1) his unqualified claim that the Israeli air attack on the U.S. naval ship "Liberty" during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was an accident (this remains controversial and there is considerable evidence to the contrary); and 2) his breezy and illogical attempt to dismiss the espionage activities perpetrated against the United States by the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

These are truly irritating lapses, but in the larger scale of things they are minor flaws which leave the author's objectivity still pretty much intact. Mr. Oren, as he announced in an NPR interview recently, is a proud Israeli special forces reservist of 30 years' standing. That makes all the more extraordinary his generally even-handed account of Arab/Israeli history, including, for example, how certain key Jewish leaders in the early 20th century advocated a bi-national Arab/Jewish state rather than a Zionist one because they foresaw the conflict the latter would bring.

So, this is about as honest and non-polemical a book as one can expect about a very emotional subject these days; it is fascinating in the historical perspective it provides on U.S. engagement with and major influence on the development of the modern Middle East; and, except for the post-1948 hundred or so pages, it is a very entertaining read. I highly recommend it.

97 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting work covering new ground, January 16, 2007

By	J. A Magill (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Few fields have been as well plowed as that of Middle East studies. Indeed, the ever expanding shelf in the bookstore on the topic groans under the weight of a torrent of new works, many which might be charitably described as derivative of already existing work. What a thrill then when a new book appears covering otherwise undisturbed ground!

Michael Oren's excellent "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present" is such a book. Instead of covering familiar subjects, Mr. Oren offers an insightful study of an area few consider, America's relationship to the Middle East in the 19th Century. Many will surely wonder at how any author can squeeze more than 600 pages - not including footnotes and bibliography -- over a topic that you might suspect could be covered in scant pages. Such is the wonderful surprise that Oren offers. In gripping prose that will be familiar with those who have already read his definitive history of the Six Day War, Oren traces America's involvement in the Middle East and North Africa all the way back to the Revolutionary War period.

Philosophically and temperamentally committed to avoiding "old world entanglements" Thomas Jefferson, first as Washington's Secretary of State and then as President, confronts the question of what to do about American shipping seized by the petty north African Berber and Arab kingdoms. The Middle East a lucrative market, European states pay tribute to these states in exchange for "protection" a notion offensive to many early American statesman. Thus, having first resisted the creation of a standing navy, Jefferson reverses course in order to protect American shipping interests. Thus begins US involvement in the region.

The study of this period provides much data of interest. To take one example, Oren cites an early treaty with a north African Muslim state, signed when many of the Framers still lived, stating categorically that the United States was "not a Christian nation." Likewise interesting, the American legation in Tangiers stands as the countries oldest.

Oren follows the story through the 19th Century and the US involvement with the Ottoman Empire. Through it all, he likewise discusses the concept of "Restorationism," that a Jewish State should be created in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, an idea with deep roots in American Protestantism. Indeed, readers who think themselves knowledgeable about diplomatic history, Zionism, and the Middle East, will likely find great surprise in learning about American missionary stations built for the very purpose of teaching Jews agricultural skills, well before Theodore Herzl's efforts. Marshalling considerable evidence, Oren argues that the US commitment to the notion of a Jewish state indeed far proceeds Israel's birth in 1948. Time and again one hears that America's relationship with Israel arises out of some nefarious political cabal warping national interest, in contrast Oren shows how such the heart of the relationship lies deep in America culture and character. Further to his credit, Oren flies through the modern period, ground well covered in other books.

Many of the issues covered will have a familiar ring to 21st century ears, such as presidents torn between cleaving to stabilizing power or siding with American ideals. Indeed, one often finds themselves wishing that Oren wrote prior to the invasion of Iraq, thus giving decision makers some much needed perspective. Nonetheless, readers will find themselves thrilled at all they can learn in this important work.

62 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Esssential information from a particular point of view, February 11, 2007

By	Arthur Leonard (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Oren's book presents essential information for anybody who wants to understand the background for America's current policies and involvement in the Middle East. It is presented from a particular point of view, naturally. Oren is an American-born historian who lives in Israel and, of course, identifies with the Jewish State. He is a military reserve officer there (as is most of the non-Orthodox adult male population) who has seen combat, and that has to color ones views, although given the historic disputatiousness of Israeli society, that doesn't necessarily dictate what those views will be. (We have to remember that Israel is a democracy in which there is lots of active dissent from the policies pursued by the government.) It is also an interesting datum that Oren opposed the U.S.'s current war in Iraq during the period prior to the invasion....

At any event, I found this book endlessly fascinating. Oren knows how to tell a good story, and there are plenty of good stories packed in here. I was fascinated by the account of how American oil companies first got a foothold in the Middle East, at a time when the U.S. State Department was, according to Oren, pretty much oblivious to the potential significance of such engagement. And Oren's accounts of the travails of American Protestant missionaries working in the 19th century Middle Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire are entertaining and instructive.

To me, the last chapter of the book, recounting the history from after the foundation of the state of Israel to the present, is a big let-down. Oren prefaces this chapter by pointing out that this period of the history is, unlike what came before, much written about, heavily documented from the public record and, conversely, hard to write something new about because so much of the important information is contained in inaccessible documentation, much of it classified for security purposes. And thus, in effect he punted on this and provide a rather breathless, broad brush view of the past 60 years that lacks the depth of his approach to the period from the 1780s forward to 1948. The last section also shows signs of haste in writing and editing, including a proliferation of proofreading flaws that are not so evident in the earlier parts of the book. I suspect that he was writing against a deadline and had to rush the last part to meet it.

Indeed, I think this book would have made more sense as an account running from the foundation of the U.S.A. in the 1780s to the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, essentially the first 500 pages, capped off with an epilog integrating what had gone before. But I'm told by somebody in the business that such a book would be much less marketable, because people are, at least superficially, less interested in the older history and thus less likely to buy a book that is not promoted as bringing the story up to the present.

So I downgrade this by one star due to the disappointments of the last section, but for the first 500 pages this is a 5-star book in my estimation.

Full disclosure: I am a friend of Mr. Oren's editor at WW Norton, and received an advanced copy of the book, although I didn't really get to reading it until after it had gone on public sale, but the views expressed are my own based on my own reading of the book.