A Moment With Michael Oren
Author of Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present
Since the days of the Barbary pirates, the Middle East has loomed large in America’s imagination and foreign policy. In Power, Faith and Fantasy, historian Michael Oren traces America’s involvement in the region. While 18th-century Americans feared the Arabic-speaking pirates, they were thrilled by the Middle East’s opulence (as portrayed in One Thousand and One Nights), and awed that it was the land of the Bible. American presidents like John Adams dreamed of a “hundred thousand Israelites” marching victoriously into Palestine, re-creating the Jewish state and bringing about the Second Coming. Writers Mark Twain and Herman Melville, along with other American adventurers, journeyed to the sand-swept region for inspiration.
A senior fellow at Jerusalem’s Shalem Center, Oren speaks with Moment’s assistant editor,...