Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations: 1820-2001

by Ussama Makdisi

The two-hundred-year-long relationship between the Arab world and United States has been fraught with tension and resentment. What began in the nineteenth century as a favorable exchange of cultural understanding and economic opportunity deteriorated with America's increasing interest in oil, and finally collapsed when America's pushed for the legitimization of the State of Israel. In this provocative new book, Lebanese-American historian Ussama Makdisi explores America's fractured relationship with the Arab world, and offers policy recommendations that can lead to its repair.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, Political Science

433 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2010

Reviews

[Alexandra Smithie]

Read quite a few chapters for class. But this is a really really amazing history of American-Middle East relations and provides a fair, accurate perspective that includes the plight of those many people overlooked and stepped on by waves of colonization until the present. I’ve seen several reviews on multiple platforms saying that the narrative voice isn’t “strictly neutral”. I wasn’t aware we were still trying to tell “objective” history from the point of view of the colonizers. It is impossible to take a “neutral” tone on human rights abuses, as it perpetuates a Western-centric viewpoint of US-Middle East relations.

[Dani Shmait]

Very informative and engaging.

[Shiela]

Well written! Though written as a historical text, it does not remain strictly neutral with commentary not often voiced to the Western, specifically American, viewpoints. Whether one agrees or disagrees, it is critical to the understanding of American-Arab relations. An important book.