More on Books from the WSJ!
This time about America's long and not often smooth relation with the Arab world, from The Wall Street Journal:
1. An Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania by Peter Markoe (1787).
Written as a spoof to convince Americans to form a more perfect Union by convincing them there was an Arab spy haunting Philadelphia! It worked.
2. Sufferings in Africa by James Riley (1817).
The story of an American shipwrecked off Africa, captured and tortured by Arabs, finally escaping to tell the tale (and writing a best seller). Having been a slave himself, Riley included an impassioned call for the abolition of slavery. Young reader Abraham Lincoln took it to heart.
3. Valley of Vison by George Bush (1847)
Bush called for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which would be freed from Ottoman hands by American military force! In 1847! A truly visionary exhortation by an ancestor and namesake of two of our recent presidents who ... manfully support a Jewish state in Palestine.
4. The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain (1869)
The book that made Twain a national treasure - and a small fortune. Twain did his best to present the Arabs (and everyone else he met) in the worst possible light. Alas, the American romantic vision of the Arab world remained mired in the Arabian Nights (pre-Walt Disney and Princess Jasmine version). OTOH, his views on Germans gained some currency around 1917.
5. The Arabist by Robert Kaplan (1993)
Kaplan goes on a tear ripping up the academic experts on the Arab world - who have, now that I think on it, been wrong about most things, with the possible exception of our decision to invade Iraq. Anti-academic polemic at its best, or at least most heart felt.
That's it folks - the conservative reading list on America and the Arab world! Some good stuff here, though I could come up with my own list with a slightly different slant. Fiasco might head it up.
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Labels: academics, Arabs, books, foreign affairs
posted by Clemens @ 11:32 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I recall that Twain was actually quite merciful to the Russians, contrasting them highly favorably with the Turks and adding that he couldn't fathom why the British and French were so set on protecting the crumbling Ottoman Empire from the ambitions of the expanding Russian Empire.
I also recall that he hated Italy. Something about a tuberculosis epidemic and a barber with a vicious blade.
Am I forgetting something?
Your memory is better than mine, Jack. But then,these days so are most people's.
Most people in Twain's time were down on the Turks. Can't think why.
Too bad about the Italians.
Cum gustibus non disputandis (very old Italian phrase)
I'd like to add to *your* list, from a historians perspective. How about Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos and Stealing History by Roger Atwood?
Maire,
Our list would never end! BTW, do you realize that we share our campus with one of the main translators of Naquib Mahfouz? That's an interesting tie in of America with the Arab world.
[Actually, I know you know this, I just thought I mention something other than that our students apparently lead the nation's university in cheating. Hot.Hot.Hot.Proud as a Peacock.]
{Sorry folks: an 'in' joke. We will now return to our regular broadcasting.}
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