Close Encounters

Power, Faith, and Fantasy

America in the Middle East:

1776 to the Present

by Michael B. Oren

Norton, 778 pp., $35

Michael Oren is known to Americans as the author of the bestselling Six Days of War, his account of the Israeli war against the Arab states in 1967. Now he has sought to take on a much wider subject, a broad history of our nation's involvement in the Middle East since 1776. Based on a wide-ranging and impressive use of the major secondary sources and original manuscript collections in the United States, Israel, Turkey, and Great Britain, Oren gives us a study that pulls no punches: a dazzling book that combines amazing stories of long-forgotten players with a subtle analysis of how our American statesmen and leaders made momentous choices in dealing with the region.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy revolves around what Oren terms the central themes surrounding America's involvement in the Middle East, which recur throughout our history. The first is power: military, economic, and diplomatic. The second is faith: the ways in which religion shaped Americans' attitudes and policies. The final theme Oren calls fantasy: the enticing and mythical Middle East beloved by many Americans, whether in books such as A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, songs like Maria Muldaur's "Midnight at the Oasis" (1974, written by David Nichtern), or in movies like Lawrence of Arabia.

As Oren proves, these themes have persisted through two centuries, and the interplay among them shaped the way Americans responded to the Middle East. In the present day, with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict looming so large, along with the rise of radical Islam, few would question how important the region is to America's well-being. But most Americans are surely unaware of how large the Middle East loomed at the dawn of our nation's development.