Mar 29, 2024  
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED BULLETIN]

HIS 237 - America and the Middle East: From the Barbary Pirates to ISIS


3 credit(s)
The course analyzes the relationship between the United States and the Middle East, stressing the evolution of each region’s concerns about and perceptions of the other. We examine how the Middle East, once an area of little and intermittent U.S. interest, became a major focus of American political, economic and strategic concern when the U.S. emerged as a great power in the early 20th century. We trace how the nature of U.S. interest and involvement in the region in turn altered many Middle Easterners’ attitudes toward the United States. We look closely at issues as: the impact of the Cold War, the changing politics of oil, the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the surge of radical Islam, the growth of terrorism culminating in the 9/11 attacks, and the emergence of ISIS.


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