logo

icon

icon

icon

icon

icon

  • Books
    • Back Close
    • Academic
      • Back Close
      • Subjects
      • Series
    • Non Fiction
      • Back Close
      • Non-Fiction
      • Anthem Essential Knowledge
    • Education
      • Back Close
      • Anthem Advanced Learning
      • Anthem SCAT Series
      • Other Education
    • Professional
  • Products
    • Back Close
    • Anthem Advanced Introductions
    • Anthem Impact
    • Anthem Enviroexperts Review
    • Anthem Handbooks
    • Partnership Publishing
    • Anthem Editions
    • First Hill Books
  • Author Hub
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
Search
WORK WITH USOPEN ACCESSRIGHTS & PERMISSIONSPRIVACY & COOKIES POLICYTERMS & CONDITIONSACCESSIBILITY
CATALOGUESBOOKSELLERSLIBRARIANSREVIEWERSINSTRUCTORSPARTNERSHIP PUBLISHING
SALES REPRESENTATIONORDERING EBOOKSSHIPPING: NORTH AMERICAShipping: UK, EU & ROWShipping: Australia & NZ

Copyright © 2025 Anthem Press. Registered in England & Wales under No. 02889958.

HomeHistoryAmerican Arabists in the Cold War Middle East, 1946–75
American Arabists in the Cold War Middle East, 1946–75
Cover
Google Review

American Arabists in the Cold War Middle East, 1946–75

From Orientalism to Professionalism

Teresa Fava Thomas

Anthem Middle East Studies



Title Details

ISBN: 9781785271809

Pages: 266

Pub Date: September 2019

Imprint: Anthem Press

Request for Desk or Exam copyAdd to Cart

Related Books

Paperback

£25.00 / $40.00

Hardback

£70.00 / $115.00

eBook (PDF)

£18.36 / $30.36

eBook (EPUB)

£18.36 / $30.36

This study examines America's Middle East area specialists and their experience over three critical decades of foreign policy, aiming to understand how they were trained, what they learned, what was their foreign policy perspective, as well as to evaluate their influence.  The book examines the post-1946 group and their role in the formulation and implementation of Middle East policy, and how this has shaped events in the relationship between American and the Middle East.

The book examines the worldview of these modern “Arabists” or Middle East hands.  It also examines their interactions with the peoples of the region and with American presidents through a series of case studies spanning the Eisenhower through the Ford administrations. Case studies shed light on Washington’s perceptions of Israel and the Arab world, as well as how American leaders came to regard (and often disregard) the advice of their own expert advisors. The Middle East Area Program (MEAP) was established at Beirut to train US Foreign Service Officers to communicate in Arabic and to understand the region and all its peoples.  Middle East hands replaced the old East Coast elite who had staffed the interwar Near East Bureau. The program promised rapid advancement, but required them to invest two years at the American University of Beirut in order to immerse themselves in language training and area studies.

Over three decades, the program recruited, selected and trained a corps of approximately fifty-three diplomats, who were a much more diverse, middle-class group than their predecessors. They were ambitious careerists who sought the fast track to the top, ultimately serving throughout the Arab world and in Israel, staffing the State Department’s area desks and advising presidents. Many were skilled political reporting officers; and almost all of them became ambassadors as America expanded its presence in the region during the period of waning British influence. The program transformed the core of the State Department staff, replacing the old network of Orientalists with this small corps of highly-trained professionals. Ultimately, despite their expertise and a realistic view of American interests, their advice was often overridden by external political concerns.

Invented History, Fabricated Power
An Intellectual History of Migration Law and Policy c.1535-2020
Transnational Nationalism in the Mediterranean Sea
What is the State For?
The Christian Culture of Islamic Spain
Principles and Forms of Sociocultural Organization