Book #1: Power, Faith and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren

Pages: 612

Published: 2007

From Jay Freeman of Booklist: "This engrossing, informative, and frequently surprising survey of U.S. involvement in the Middle East over the past 230 years is particularly timely. Oren, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and New Republic, illustrates that American interests have frequently [merges] elements of romanticism, religious fervency, and hardheaded power politics. In the early nineteenth century, [Thomas] Jefferson, perhaps acting against his own instincts to remain aloof from the affairs of the Old World, sent the [nascent] American navy to confront the Barbary pirates off the coast of North Africa. Like many of our future endeavors in the region, the results were a mixture of success, failure, and farce. Other episodes covered here that are particularly interesting include previously obscure American efforts to locate the source of the Nile and the efforts by American missionaries to convert vast numbers of Ottoman subjects. But Oren is at his best when describing American involvement in the twentieth century as the U.S. replaced Britain as the dominant "imperial" power in the area. Appealing to both scholars and general readers." Jay Freeman

From J. A. Magill: "Few fields have been as well plowed as that of Middle East studies. Indeed, the ever expanding shelf in the bookstore on the topic [sags] under the weight of a torrent of new works, many which might be charitably described as [superfluous]. 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."

This book interests me because it is an examination of very specific interactions between two vastly differing regions. By providing concrete examples of the development of political and commercial relationships, Oren teaches readers of the origins of some of the most tenuous modern political ties.