Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Authors
- Part One The State of the Art
- Part Two The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941
- 6 The Historiography of American Foreign Relations: An Introduction
- 7 A Half-Century of Conflict: Interpretations of U.S. World War II Diplomacy
- 8 The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update
- 9 Origins of the Cold War in Europe and the Near East: Recent Historiography and the National Security Imperative
- 10 Making Known the Unknown War: Policy Analysis of the Korean Conflict since the Early 1980s
- 11 Eisenhower Revisionism: The Scholarly Debate
- 12 John F. Kennedy as World Leader: A Perspective on the Literature
- 13 The Unending Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War
- 14 Complaints, Self-Justifications, and Analysis: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1969
- 15 An Emerging Synthesis? U.S.–Latin American Relations since the Second World War
- 16 Gideon's Band: America and the Middle East since 1945
- 17 The Cold War in Asia: The Elusive Synthesis
- 18 The Power of Money: The Historiography of American Economic Diplomacy
- 19 Coming in from the Cold War: The Historiography of American Intelligence, 1945–1990
- Index
16 - Gideon's Band: America and the Middle East since 1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Authors
- Part One The State of the Art
- Part Two The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1941
- 6 The Historiography of American Foreign Relations: An Introduction
- 7 A Half-Century of Conflict: Interpretations of U.S. World War II Diplomacy
- 8 The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update
- 9 Origins of the Cold War in Europe and the Near East: Recent Historiography and the National Security Imperative
- 10 Making Known the Unknown War: Policy Analysis of the Korean Conflict since the Early 1980s
- 11 Eisenhower Revisionism: The Scholarly Debate
- 12 John F. Kennedy as World Leader: A Perspective on the Literature
- 13 The Unending Debate: Historians and the Vietnam War
- 14 Complaints, Self-Justifications, and Analysis: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1969
- 15 An Emerging Synthesis? U.S.–Latin American Relations since the Second World War
- 16 Gideon's Band: America and the Middle East since 1945
- 17 The Cold War in Asia: The Elusive Synthesis
- 18 The Power of Money: The Historiography of American Economic Diplomacy
- 19 Coming in from the Cold War: The Historiography of American Intelligence, 1945–1990
- Index
Summary
The people stared at us every where, and we stared at them. We generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we crushed them …
If ever those children of Israel in Palestine forget when Gideon's Band went through there from America, they ought to be cursed once more and finished. It was the rarest spectacle that ever astounded mortal eyes, perhaps.
Mark Twain, The Innocents AbroadOn a rainy Saturday in June 1867, Mark Twain scurried down Wall Street and boarded the S.S. Quaker City, a first-class steamer bound for the Holy Land, where he would witness one of America's earliest and best publicized encounters with the Middle East. Expecting to find a blend of Old World splendor and Christian asceticism in a setting as familiar as the nearest bible, Twain's fellow travelers – self-styled pilgrims who hailed from Boston, St. Louis, and points west – stumbled instead into terra incognita. Appalled by scenes of oriental squalor, harried by constant demands for baksheesh, and astonished by how little nineteenth-century Arabs and Jews resembled idealized biblical figures, Twain's innocents abroad scrambled back aboard the Quaker City and steamed home, leaving the Middle East to the handful of American missionaries and merchants for whom the exotic region remained a life's work.
Just a century after Twain's calamitous 1867 excursion to the Holy Land, the United States would emerge as the preeminent power in the Middle East.
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- America in the WorldThe Historiography of US Foreign Relations since 1941, pp. 462 - 500Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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