In the preface to the final section, Oren notes that the purpose of this book is both simple and complex: to identify recurring patterns in U.S./Mid-East relations throughout the years. What the reader can take away with them is a rich tapestry of context in which to view not only the remaining chapters of the book, but ultimately any new developments in the region. In Oren's words, "The objective is to enable Americans to read about the fighting in Iraq and hear the echoes of the Barbary Wars and Operation Torch" (the codename for U.S. operations in North Africa and the mid-east in WWII).
This book turned out to be a surprise for me. History and the written word can trudge through decades of bland non-events. Middle east history itself-- perhaps due to the sheer amount written on the subject-- can often feel like a barrage of meaningless dates and names. Yet, Oren's lucid writing style makes even centuries of Christian missionary work (not the most thrilling topic in the world) seem crucial and engaging when viewed within a larger picture. As any good historian, Oren acts as a tour guide for a nearly 250-year relationship.
This book will only increase in intellectual value as time goes by and I fully intend to re-read it. As America and the middle-east become more and more inextricably linked (as much as neither party really wants to), our knowledge of each other can be the only way to see through to a mutually happy next 250 years.

كتاب تاريخي دسم ومشوق جداً في تاريخ علاقة الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية بمنطقة الشرق الأوسط خلال القرون الثلاثة الماضية.

من الطرافة التاريخية أن ملك المغرب في عام ١٧٨٦ أجبر الكونجرس الأمريكي على أن يطلب من "جيفرسون" أن يتفاوض معه تجنباً للحرب والغارات البحرية على السفن الأمريكية في البحر المتوسط، ليكون أول ملك في العالم يعترف باستقلال الولايات المتحدة وأول زعيم مسلم يوقع معاهدة رسمية مع الجمهوية الناشئة، واضطر الأمريكان إلى دفع إتاوة إلى تونس والجزائر من أجل تأمين سفنهم.

استمد الأمريكان تصورهم عن سحر الشرق من الإنجيل وكتاب ألف ليلة وليلة، وصدر عندهم نحو ثلاثين كتاب عن مصر في الربع الأول من القرن ال١٩، وسميت أربع مدن أمريكية باسم القاهرة وثلاثة مدن بغداد والمدينة، وسميت مدينتان مكة وواحدة حلب والجزائر، لكن صُدم الرحالة الأمريكان مثل "ليديارد" بما رأوه على أرض الواقع من تخلف ورجعية مثلتها المناطق العربية الخاضعة للحكم العثماني.

سادت في أوساط الكنائس الإنجليكانية في أمريكا منذ القرن التاسع عشر فكرة إعادة اليهود إلى فلسطين من أجل التعجيل بعودة المسيح، تناقض الموقف الأمريكي من الاستعمار الأوروبي للعالم والذي كان يتناقض مع أساس قيام الولايات المتحدة التي تحررت من سطوة وعبودية أوروبا، ولم يكن كثيرٌ من الأمريكيين يؤيدون مشاركة بلادهم في ذلك السباق الاستعماري، فندد الفيلسوف "وليام جيمس" بالداروينية الاجتماعية التي تبرر غزو الشعوب والدول الأجنبية، وكان بعض القساوسة يؤيدون قيادة أمريكا لحملة انتزاع الأراضي المقدسة من سيطرة المسلمين.

Very comprehensive look at America's involvement in the Middle East. Barbary wars to early 2000's...it's a lot to take in...found the early years the most fascinating.

A very superficial, one-sided and biased "analysis" of the United States involvement in the middle-east. The motivation of the middle-eastern people's resistance to the U.S.'s attempts to exploit the region are never explored. Instead, the native people of the middle east are presented as savages that are intent on conflicting with the United-States for no particular reason, with the United-States motives being portrayed as an altruistic superpower intent on enlightening the world, which is extremely naive.

For a better understanding of the middle-east, I would recommend the less widely available "Sowing the Wind", by John Keay.

A hugely ambitious history of America's invovlement in the Middle East, providing a finely balanced overview of this enormously complex subject. Highly recommended, I've delighted in its treatment of how the Barbary Coast was a huge incentive behind getting a constitution and Federalist government; the fact that the Statue of Liberty was originally intended for the Suez Canal; that the first Zionists to settle in Palestine were in fact American Protestants, who planted successive, ill-fated colonies aimed at “restoring” the Holy Land to Jews, so that their subsequent conversion to Christianity would speed the Second Coming; that Civil War veterans officered Egyptian campaigns in Sudan and Abyssinia; that before landing in North Africa during World War II, the United States Army dropped leaflets advertising the arrival of “Holy Warriors ... to fight the great jihad of freedom”. I could go one and on about this book, its probably the best and most comphresnive book on the subject I've read.

It took me a while to both get through this book and to get around to writing a review (as David's comments below attest).

As a history book, the first 2/3 are good, if a bit dry and slow in places. The real highlight is the wealth of colorful American characters that our country has inflicted on the Middle East - crazy missionaries, Civil War veterans determined to find the headwaters of the Nile, headstrong and star-crossed naval commanders.

By the time we get to WWI, I start knowing the material better myself and the reading went much faster. Oren himself acknowledges a change in style in the post-WWII section (by pointing to a wealth of other sources covering the period). But at this same point, something about the voice of the book started bothering me. I know Oren splits his time between the US and Israel, so I felt myself starting to look for a bias towards a Zionist position. I'd say "I'll bet he's going to skip right over the USS Liberty attack" but then there would be a line about it...not a big soul-searching discussion, but a mention.

I still feel like the book focuses too heavily on the Holy Land, Zionism, and Israel, but I'm not sure what else it needs to be balanced with. I guess that's what I was looking for here, more information about US-Middle East relations that they don't teach in school. I got that for everything before 1947. I feel like I was missing something for the more modern period.

This book was a great primer on how and why we got to where we are in the Middle East. From the days of the early republic until 9/11, this book traces our politics, faith journey and mythical fantasies in the region. I was fascinated to learn how only in the modern era since WWII has the United States really sought to establish and protect Israel to the extent we have, as originally, Zionism was not as popular as one may think given today's political culture. A timely and fascinating read, I recommend anyone wanting to know this story from the beginning.

Well that went off the rails quickly. I very much enjoyed the majority of this book. The last 100 pages or so were a complete waste of time.

I realized after I had bought the book that the author, Michael Oren, was the Israeli Ambassador to the US between 2009 and 2013. Going to an actual political actor for historical perspective is generally not such a great idea. Best to stick to their memoirs, a set of which I believe Oren has recently published. But for the majority of the book, I think Oren manages to see beyond the perspective of his country. His objectivity was occasionally quite impressive. For example, his telling of the events of 1948 doesn't look at Israel's founders through rose tinted glasses, he mentions the terrorism, and he suggests that they were responsible for much of the escalation of the crisis.

Oren is right that the subject, US relations with the Middle East, deserves a broader survey. For most of the book he ably serves up fascinating characters, delightful anecdotes and interesting theories. I was impressed by the extent of US influence on the formation of the Egyptian military in the 19th century. He doesn't adequately support some of his most interesting suggestions, such as the link between Arab nationalism and US missionary universities, and the threat of Barbary Piracy and the success of the campaign for the US Constitution, but they are interesting things to think about. All in all I enjoyed the book, all the way from the Revolution to the end of World War II.

Beyond that point, pretty much from Israel's founding, the book is basically useless. It's an extended apologia/ endorsement of Israeli policy, and the aspects of US policy that Israel likes. There are some interpretations here that were completely new to me. Apparently Carter and Clinton weren't all that useful for the big steps forward in the peace process during their administrations, the Israelis already had it handled. All those billions of dollars we've transferred to the Egyptians over the years to keep Camp David alive are apparently an afterthought. It's all a bit ridiculous. I haven't read an account of the George W. Bush's Iraq war this uncritical and glowing since 2005. This book dates from 2007.

In Oren's defense, before he embarks on the post-1948 survey, he does mention that it's less useful than the rest of the book. His explanation is that the archives aren't open yet, but I think it's also an inability, conscious or unconscious, to see beyond the attitudes and goals he spent his career shaping and pushing. I would have given this book a four or five star review if it had ended with World War II.

There was one other thing I wanted to mention. This book shares an emphasis with Simon Sebag Montefiore's Jerusalem book, which I also mostly enjoyed. A lot of time is spent covering how undeveloped Palestine was before the Jewish settlers got there. Much of the book is made up of the accounts of US travelers to the Holy Land and other areas in the Middle East. These are sometimes presented in their own words, sometimes by the author. With what feels like every single figure, Oren makes sure to emphasize how crappy they found everything. It's carefully couched in tut-tuting about those nasty 19th century racists, but I find Oren's protests half-hearted. He's chosen to present these aspects of these accounts, over and over again, and in preference to other aspects. This is a classy way of doing it, but it's also kind of a sneaky way of advancing a troubling claim I often see in pro-Israel literature: "Before Israel, there wasn't really anything there..."

If I recall correctly, Montefiore actually claims in his book that the only reason there are as many Palestinians as there are is because of late 19th and early 20th century development in the area brought about by Jewish settlers. This may very well be true. And I also buy that Israel has been a better steward of its lands than the Ottomans and the British were before them. But I don't like the implications of advancing this claim.

Palestine was a mess before Jewish settlement, not because of Jewish virtue but because it was in a pre-modern state. Centuries of neglect alternating with oppression from the Turks were not going to yield Switzerland. If you're going to argue, or just subtly imply, as these historians have, that "our guys" have a better right to the land because their technology was more sophisticated, and they had Imperial might working for them rather than against them, then you've got to follow the thought through. Isn't this just a 21st century burden of the "white man's burden"? Isn't this a sneaky endorsement of 19th century imperialism at it's worst? If Palestine should be subjugated for failing to win the game of development, shouldn't all of Africa as well?

It's thinking like that that brought us to the two largest catastrophes described in this book, World Wars I and II. I can forgive Oren for the professionally mandated waste of time that the last part of this book is. I'm not so sure I can forgive him for seeming to endorse that old timey "white man's burden" kind of thinking.

I enjoy watching shows like The Unit, Seal Team, NCIS, FBI, Jack Ryan, etc… The Middle East is mentioned often and I found myself recognizing names, countries, and events with no real context. I decided I needed to learn about the Middle East and America. I watched a few documentaries while this book sat on my shelf for a few weeks. I’ll admit I was intimidated but come to find out the book is VERY accessible.

It took me a month and a half to read. There is sooooo much information, at times there seemed to be quiet a bit irrelevant information, but I do not have the necessary knowledge to say exactly how much was filler! A lot of my questions were answered. Was it always about oil? Exactly when did the US come to the Middle East? How long has terrorism been an issue? Why is America hated and reviled across the Gulf? Why did Americ supply arms and support to nations that we then went to war with? What role did the Soviet Union/Russia play in these events?

I learned things I’d never heard before. The American Civil War led to massive changes in the Middle East which sounded odd to me at first. I had no idea that so many Universities in the Middle East had been funded and ran by Americans and that we supposedly taught them the idea of nationalism which led to many issues later on.

My biggest concern is the authors unrelenting view that American had altruistic motives up until WWll and even then the US was basically trying to be the good guys. I’m going to do some more research, read a few more books, and see if that opinion holds weight. But as it stands I thought this book was very well written and informative. The author listed so many citations I can’t help but believe the book to be very factual.

هي حرب صليبية جديدة
كما قالها بوش الابن قاصدا أوبدون قصد
أيا كان الزمن أيا كانت الدولة أيا كان الأسلوب
أمريكا تحقق الديمقراطية والأمن والسلام من وجهة نظرها وحدها وبما يحقق مصالحها اولا وقبل كل شئ في اي مكان وزمان ولا ترى ثقوب ثوبها كما بنفس العين التي ترى بها الثقوب في أثواب الآخرين
الخلاصة
عدو العرب الاول هم حكام العرب وما يتبع ذلك من شرح وأسباب
لا عزة الا في الاسلام والذي عاش في ظله المسيحين واليهود في سلام
لا عزة الا في الاسلام الأصيل الجميل
لا عزة الا في الاسلام لا في القومية ولا في العصبية ولا في القبلية

Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present documents the involvement of the U.S.A. in the Middle East from the first battles with Barbary pirates through our current war in Iraq. As Oren examines each period (demarcated by our wars), he describes the inter-connected roles of military and economic power, religious faith, and America’s fantasies of the Middle East. As a neophyte history reader, I am amazed by this story and this history. Oren’s writing style is easy-to-follow and the level of detail that he dives into when describing particular journeys of missionaries or warriors or statesmen helps drive home the reality of the subject (although it does make for a long read). After arriving at the explanation of the post-WWII situation, Oren ends the detailed writing style, tells the reader why (others have already covered recent history in detail and the sources he prefers are still classified) and then covers the last sixty years at a faster pace. After that, the epilogue serves as a great review of the major points/events.

The book could also have been titled Power, Faith, Fantasy and Family, given the incredible genealogical connections of many of the players in the political, military and religious arenas. I would love to have the time to re-read it and chart out all the connections, noting which generations acted in which arena and under which ideology. For now though, I’m just in awe of the patterns.

Granted I have nothing to compare it to (a combination of the facts that I have not read many history books and that Oren wrote the book because no one else had covered it like he wanted to), I highly recommend this history. Although it took me several weeks to read it, I now have a much richer appreciation our interactions with the Middle East over the last few centuries. As a side benefit, Oren’s categorization of our interactions into military/political, religious and fantastical was very helpful in making my way through the history and should be useful in other areas.

Heavy. The 60’s to early 90’s is stuffed into 100 pages. The first 3 quarters of the book are long. Very long. But all the information is important. It just doesn’t keep the reader engaged throughout