Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present

I recently finished the book mentioned in the title by Michael Oren. It is an excellent book on the history of the Middle East from the US's perspective. The main point of the book is in the title: the US has always viewed the Middle East with a mixture of power, faith, and fantasy. The power is the military might, all the way from the confrontation with the Barbary pirates to the second Gulf War. The faith is the missionary movement and the influence from reading the Bible. The stories about the early missionaries are exciting and somewhat chilling. The Middle East just seems to attract strange people. The fantasy is the unreal image that the Middle East holds over American's view of the land of the Bible and the 1001 Arabian nights. America has always had difficulty in the region because of the interrelation of these three aspects. The first part of the book is best as he talks about history that is not discussed very much, but once he gets past WW2 he goes much quicker, althought this quick picture of the past sixty years was helpful as a grand overview. If you want help to understand the Middle East tody, this is a great book to read. This is also a great book to see how we can learn from history and how while things change greatly over time others never seem to go anywhere. The book is worth it just to read the stories about hte missionaries. Highly recommended!

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