This book attempts to discuss the American government's involvement in the Middle East since 1776. With such a broad subject, of course it's going to be a bit shallow. While I commend the author on his effort, I found it to be disorganized at times, a bit overly simplistic at others, and downright confusing at still other times.

Oren jumps around in the timeline, introducing historical figures decades before he plans to discuss them, often hinting at decades to come before returning to the current discussion without warning the reader that he'd returned to his original discussion. The entire first half of the book, I was frustrated by the apparent vacuum in which Americans operated; he made little or no mention of what the great European powers were up to. I understand that it's a book about America's Middle Eastern involvement, but we weren't operating in a vacuum and there were, in fact, more powerful players at the time. I've taken just enough Middle Eastern history classes to get annoyed by Oren's silence in certain areas. And his statement that our treatment by Barbary pirates resulted in the Constitution, while partly true, ignores numerous domestic as well as other foreign issues that all joined together in creating the necessity of a stronger union.

The book could have used a little bit stronger editing: in one chapter, Oren spends a page and a half talking about the Americans who'd travelled to the Middle East, witnessed slavery there, and wrote about the comparisons between American slavery and Middle Eastern slavery. A page later, he writes that the people least likely to compare the two were Americans who'd actually journeyed there. Huh? Not so much a topic issue but still editing: the use of commas was often rather...quirky.

Still, he did introduce a couple of topics I'd like to learn more about - primarily, the Laconia incident that he says directly resulted in America's entry into WWI. I've always believed it was the Lusitania, but that doesn't even get mentioned in this book. It's worth reading for further research topics, but I don't know if I'd recommend it to someone who hasn't read other books on the Middle East; this one is just a little too one-dimensional.

This is an immensely fascinating study of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations starting in 1776 and roughly ending in 2006-2007. Oren not only writes passionately and convincingly about U.S. military and diplomatic interactions with the region, but also about the humanitarian and missionary work that private citizens did in the region, which had a far greater impact upon U.S. relations in the Middle East pre-1914 than one might think. I especially find it ironic that the Zionist movement and Arabian Nationalist movement, as documented by Oren, had roots either in America or in the American-styled universities set up throughout the Middle East. I was very tempted to give this book five stars, but I didn't because it seems that, at times, Oren moves too quickly through certain passages without really identifying their importance until much later. This is especially true in regards to chapters and sections dealing with world fairs and the like that featured Middle Eastern exhibits. Oren claims that these exhibits had an impact on American's perceptions of the region, but doesn't give any good examples of that impact. But, that is only a minor inconvenience compared to the quality of the rest of the book. In short, this is a great book for anyone interested in a general history of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations.

Do we really need a book that lists every missionary who traveled to the Middle East between 1776 and 2009? I guess so. The author also has never met a fact about any of the individuals that he writes about that he hasn't loved. It's not enough to mention one of the countless missionaries who died, failed, got sick, lost everything without also mentioning what position they played on their high school baseball team and what their favorite color was. However, the one thing I can't get over is the (relatively small) section on how wonderfully awesome George W. Bush was vis-a-vis the Middle East. Oh, and we can blame terrorism on Clinton.

I started reading this back in April, whilst reading a couple other books. Because of the current Gaza War and the diversity of opinion about it, I started this in the middle, at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and then went back and read the first half. Although there is probably no book out there that satisfactorily answers all our questions about the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, this book as as good as any, particularly if you are American and want to know how we ended up hitching our wagon to Israel. The answer is not as straightforward as one might think. Does it have a bias? That's tough, because I was looking for bias, as the author is an Israeli historian and politician. But he actually does a pretty good job of telling it like it is (or WAS). It's quite a slog, but worth the effort.

Mixed reviews on this one. With a subject this massive, I don't know how much better Oren could have done. The first few chapters on the post-Revolutionary War campaign against the pirates in N. Africa is excellent, but the middle drags. Oren also tries a little to hard to bring everything into his three-pronged framework, to the point where you wonder if he's just being cute. Still, in 600 pages, he brings a titanic amount of research to bear, packages it with some decent analysis, and leaves you a lot better educated on the topic/ than when you started. I also give him credit for being fairly evenhanded on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which is pretty rare among any supposed "experts." Of course, most strong supporters of either cause would consider him biased in the other direction, but that's good enough for me. As a judge on Law and Order once said when a ruling of his pissed off both McCoy and the defence, "Oh, I know I'm right when nobody's happy."

The book starts out slow and gradually gains velocity. Its heavy focus on the first century and a half of US history allows for story telling about many individual soldiers, missionaries, or adventurers who went to the Middle East. Then the entanglements grow more complicated, and the momentum of events builds. By the 1980s, the writing is a fairly breathless rush of momentous events. It's good to have it all flash before your eyes like this, but it's little more than a stream of headlines. Through the whole big story, Oren highlights what has been noble in America's efforts, while always including critical views. He does an excellent job of capturing America's part in the rise of Israel, and the difficult choices Americans made in response to a rising tragedy, as Jewish refugees fled from the bonfire of anti-Semitic Europe into the frying pan of an anti-colonial Middle East. As for recent conflicts, Oren seems cautious in judging his contemporaries. He seems to feel that presenting the big picture of the past will provide balance, and the present will be judged by future works of history. I would have liked to see more on America's relations with Saudi Arabia, and a greater discussion of the issues in political or military control of religious movements.

تشير القوة إلى السعي لتحقيق مصالح أمريكا في الشرق الأوسط من خلال مجموعة متنوعة من الوسائل - العسكرية والدبلوماسية والمالية. تصف القوة مثلا: قرار الرئيس ماديسون بإرسال سفن حربية ضد الجزائر في عام 1815 وجهود لينكولن في عام 1863 لثني مصر عن التدخل في المكسيك.

الإيمان، الموضوع الثاني، يشير إلى تأثير الدين في تشكيل المواقف والسياسات الأمريكية تجاه الشرق الأوسط. وعلى الرغم من أن الكاثوليك واليهود لعبوا دورًا نشطًا في تحديد مسار علاقة أمريكا بالمنطقة، خاصة بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، إلا أن التأثير البروتستانتي كان هو السائد تقليديًا. غادر المبشرون البروتستانت الأوائل بوسطن متجهين إلى الشرق الأوسط في عام 1819 بهدف إعادة فلسطين إلى السيادة اليهودية وإنقاذ أرواح المسيحيين الأرثوذكس والموارنة والدروز.

الموضوع الثالث هو الخيال. لقد كانت فكرة الشرق الأوسط تسحر الأميركيين دائما، فتأسرهم بمونتاج أثيري للمآذن والأهرامات والواحات والجمال والكثبان الرملية. نشأت المفاهيم الرومانسية للمنطقة في الكتاب المقدس، وهو تقليديًا الكتاب الأكثر قراءة على نطاق واسع في أمريكا، مع تصويره للصحراء بكلمات ساحرة.

رغم النفس الصهيوني عند الكاتب الا ان الكتب ثمين في تاريخ الاحتكاك التاريخي بين أمريكا وشعوب الشرق الأوسط

power the book is fantastic

Mis-Adventures in the Mid East

I was really looking forward to reading this book & gaining a better understanding of the history of our relationship with those countries that now constitute the Middle East. For the most part Mr. Oren (Israel's current Ambassador to the US), does a splendid job tracing our involvement & the evolving interdependency of our country and the nation states of the Middle East. He eloquently & with a dry wit fashions a wry narrative that stitches together the unseemly alliance of Christian evangelism and a shackled imperialists quest for power & hegemony. While there is nothing humorous about reading of the staggering deaths & defeats that early American missionaries encountered in their treks to the Holy Land (the final & most important destination for most), one cannot but laugh in an uncomfortable way at the comedy of errors that befell these early travelers.

What emerges most though, seamlessly rippling through all of the accounts, is an unflattering portrait of the indigenous people's of the Mid East - Muslims, Christians & Jews. These negative impressions are made real as they are expressed through the words of notables such as Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt & other such luminaries. These are uncivilized people - dirty, reeking of bad hygiene, unscrupulous - and further, unwilling to be converted to the right type of Christianity. Now, whether Mr. Oren consciously or not, sought to portray these individuals as less than Westerners may be debatable; what is not, is that they are set up as the perfect foils for a twentieth century finale we are all too familiar with.

I have had this book on my to-read list for a long, long, long time (almost 7 years). But due to the length of the book and the density of the subject matter (not to mention my aversion to history books that have bored me to tears in the past), I just never seemed to want to read it. I even checked out the book once or twice, but ended up returning it before I got around to it.

But I've really taken to listening to audiobooks in the car during my daily commute. Some drives are longer than others, but I still get a good half-hour or so of listening each day. So when I discovered that our local library had an audio CD version of this book, I jumped at the chance. It's 22 (that's right, twenty-two!) discs long, so it still took over a month to get through the whole thing, but on the whole, I was glad I took the plunge.

The narrative is certainly dry in parts, but for the most part, I was enthralled by the story. The descriptions of violence were quite graphic at times, but on the whole, I could listen to the book even with our girls in the car with me. Ususally they just ignored it and read their own books, but sometimes we'd talk about the historical period being discussed.

Both of our girls are studying Colonial times in school, so the earlier sections were quite relevant to their studies. We were all surprised at how much America was involved in the Middle East from its very inception.

new words: inchoate, internecine

Really long, but very well written and well researched. Oren's style keeps the reader engaged and moves through the 230 year time period at a good clip. He maintains a good balance with the final product sufficiently detailed without feeling drawn out.

Power, Faith and Fan­tasy: Amer­ica in the Mid­dle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren is a study of the rela­tion­ship the United States had towards the Mid­dle East since its incep­tion. Mr. Oren is an Israeli born author and his­to­rian who sev­ered as an amabas­sodor to the United States from 2009 to 2013.

Power, Faith and Fan­tasy: Amer­ica in the Mid­dle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren is a very long book in which the authors makes his case about the impor­tant role the US played, and still plays, in the Mid­dle East as well as the way the Islamic Mid­dle East played a role in cre­ated the mighty Amer­i­can mil­i­tary. The threats from the Mid­dle East not only played a role in cre­at­ing a strong army to defend the bor­ders of the US, but also its inter­ests abroad.

The book states that the poli­cies towards Mid­dle East has been coher­ent in the 18th Cen­tury, but now they are a mess, as is the region itself. Mr. Oren does a fine job observ­ing neu­tral­ity through­out the book, espe­cially on con­tentious issues, quot­ing pol­icy mak­ers and care­ful not to take a stand himself.

Besides objec­tive his­tory, Mr. Oren also writes about the per­son­al­i­ties involved, includ­ing lit­tle anec­dotes which always make his­tory fun. It was amaz­ing for me to read how much Chris­t­ian restora­tionism has influ­enced Amer­i­can pol­icy before World War II and how the AIPAC has influ­enced pol­icy afterwards.

The book is big on details, but the nar­ra­tive is enter­tain­ing and inter­est­ing. I applaud the author for going through, what seems like, a fan­tas­tic amount of research through pri­mary sources and gov­ern­men­tal records.

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