Historical Dictionary Of United States Middle East Relations

U.S. foreign relations in the Middle East has remained crucial through many decades and the complications facing the United States in the Middle East have become even more acute. While the United States downgraded its military operations in Iraq, that country failed to achieve a stable, democratic footing and instead experienced schism and civil strife. Israeli-Palestinian disputes over land, the status of refugees, and control of Jerusalem intensified, and international conflicts between Arab states and Israel escalated for the first time since the 1980s. The Arab Spring protest movements of 2011 and after ignited political turmoil across the region, leading to revolutionary change in several states and triggering persistent unrest and violence in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. During the recent decade, in short, the Middle East has become the most unstable, dangerous, and complicated region of the world and the United States remains near the center of the maelstrom. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of United States-Middle East Relations contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on national leaders, non-governmental organizations, policy initiatives, and armed conflicts, as well as entries on such topics as intelligence, immigration, and weapons of mass destruction. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the US and Middle East Relations.

This historical dictionary brings together information about the people, institutions, and events that brought the United States in contact with the Middle East and have played a significant role in shaping our relations with the area from the eighteenth century to the present time. The author's introduction presents an historical review of the role Americans and American institutions have played in the region. Entries include persons who have actually been in the Middle East, particularly those who left notable written or visual records; organizations and institutions that operated in the Middle East; and events that occurred in the area. Following a descriptive essay, each entry lists books and articles written about the subject, and where relevant, general biographical dictionaries in which the subject appears. Lists of abbreviations and place names, as well as separate bibliography and an index, are provided.

Given the rivalries and suspicions prevailing in the Middle East, it is not surprising that most of these states are very concerned about espionage and infiltration. With the additional threat of terrorism, nuclear weapons, a large U.S. military presence, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the result is an impressively busy intelligence industry, proportionately larger and more extensive than in most other regions. The Historical Dictionary of Middle East Intelligence addresses intelligence issues in the region from ancient history and the Middle Ages through modern times, covering the decline of the Ottoman Empire, intelligence activity in the Middle East during and between the two world wars, and the interplay between colonial and local intelligence and counterintelligence agencies of the period. It also presents the relatively new fundamentalist terrorist organizations that have had a significant impact on international relations and on the structure and deployment of intelligence, counterintelligence, and other security organs in the Middle East today. With a chronology, an introductory essay, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important events and key organizations involved in all aspects of intelligence gathering and analysis, as well as the biographies of key players, this is an important reference on the current situation in the Middle East.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia now has been under the spotlight of Western curiosity for more than 80 years. More than 15% of the world’s total oil reserves lie underneath Saudi Arabia and, in the early 1990s, the kingdom became the world’s largest crude oil producer. Not surprisingly, a world highly dependent on oil regards the desert kingdom as an area of intense strategic concern, as reflected in the coalition of forces assembled on Saudi soil to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. Also, it played a major role in the invasion of Saddam Husayn’s Iraq in 2003 and shares concern with the West over Iran’s nuclear intentions throughout the 21st century. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Saudi Arabia contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Saudi Arabia.

... Military affairs, demography, and geography. includes a selected and classified bibliography, introductory essay, maps, tables, and a chronology of both Israeli and Jewish history.

The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Gulf Arab States comes at a time when the world's attention is riveted on the Middle East. The small states covered in this volume_Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)_possess about 20 percent of the world's total oil reserves. Beyond the strategic and economic importance conferred upon them by their vast oil reserves, the Gulf Arab states are worthy of attention for the inherent interest of their history and culture. No area of the world has yielded more revealing and exciting archaeological finds in the past few decades than these states. Investigations have brought to light extensive evidence of an important culture as old as Egypt of the Pharaohs or ancient Babylon, which was virtually unknown previously except through rare references in the records of other civilizations. This expanded second edition covers the history of the five countries through a chronology broken down by country, a list of acronyms and abbreviations, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, and events of each country. Everything from the Abbasids to Zubarah is covered in this essential reference on this increasingly important region of the world.

The Historical Dictionary of Women in the Middle East and North Africa includes a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and a dictionary section that has over 400 cross-referenced entries on various aspects of Middle Eastern feminism and culture, touchi...

This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Iraq contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.