Sent to the Middle East by Woodrow Wilson to ascertain the viability of self-determination in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, the King-Crane Commission of 1919 was America's first foray into the region. The commission's controversial recommendations included the rejection of the idea of a Jewish state in Syria, US intervention in the Middle East and the end of French colonial aspirations. The Commission's recommendations proved inflammatory, even though its counsel on the question of the Palestinian mandate was eventually disregarded by Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau in favour of their own national interests. In the ensuing years, the Commission's dismissal of claims by Zionist representatives like David Ben-Gurion on their 'right to Palestine' proved particularly divisive, with some historians labeling it prophetic and accurate, and others arguing that Commission members were biased and ill-informed. Here, in the first book-length analysis of the King-Crane report in nearly 50 years, Andrew Patrick chronicles the history of early US involvement in the region, and challenges extant interpretations of the turbulent relationship between the United States and the Middle East.

“This expertly researched account brings to life a meaningful but underexplored chapter in world history.” —Publishers Weekly When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against the Turks. The British supported the Arabs’ fight for an independent state and sent an intelligence officer, T.E. Lawrence, to join Prince Faisal, leader of the Arab army and a descendant of the Prophet. In October 1918, Faisal, Lawrence, and the Arabs victoriously entered Damascus, where they declared a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal won the support of Woodrow Wilson, who sent an American commission to Syria to survey the political aspirations of its people. However, other Entente leaders at Paris—and later San Remo—schemed against the Arab democracy, which they saw as a threat to their colonial rule. On March 8, 1920, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence and crowned Faisal king of a “representative monarchy.” Rashid Rida, a leading Islamic thinker of the day, led the constituent assembly to establish equality for all citizens, including non-Muslims, under a full bill of rights. But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government, instead imposing a system of mandates on the Arab provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire, on the pretext that Arabs weren’t yet ready for self-government. Under such a mandate, the French invaded Syria in April, crushing the Arab government and sending Faisal and Congress leaders into exile. The fragile coalition of secular modernizers and Islamic reformers that might have established democracy in the Arab world was destroyed, with profound consequences that reverberate still. Using many previously untapped primary sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts and letters, minutes from the Syrian-Arab Congress, and diary and journal entries from participants, How The West Stole Democracy From The Arabs is a groundbreaking account of this extraordinary, brief moment of unity and hope—and of its destruction. “Important and fascinating.” —Amaney A. Jamal, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, Princeton University

Using prominent American-style universities as case studies, American Universities in the Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy explores how these institutions relate to U.S. foreign policy interests and how this relationship has evolved from the mid-19th century to today.

Since 2011, civil wars and state failure have wracked the Arab world, underlying the misalignment between national identity and political borders. In Break all the Borders, Ariel I. Ahram examines the separatist movements that aimed to remake those borders and create new independent states. With detailed studies of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the federalists in eastern Libya, the southern resistance in Yemen, and Kurdish nationalist parties, Ahram explains how separatists captured territory and handled the tasks of rebel governance, including managing oil exports, electricity grids, and irrigation networks. Ahram emphasizes that the separatism arose not just as an opportunistic response to state collapse. Rather, separatists drew inspiration from the legacy of Woodrow Wilson and ideal of self-determination. They sought to reinstate political autonomy that had been lost during the early and mid-twentieth century. Speaking to the international community, separatist promised a more just and stable world order. In Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya, they served as key allies against radical Islamic groups. Yet their hopes for international recognition have gone unfulfilled. Separatism is symptomatic of the contradictions in sovereignty and statehood in the Arab world. Finding ways to integrate, instead of eliminate, separatist movements may be critical for rebuilding regional order.

Night on Earth is a broad-ranging account of international humanitarian programs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East from 1918 to 1930. Davide Rodogno shows that international 'relief' and 'development' were intertwined long before the birth of the United Nations with humanitarians operating in a region devastated by war and famine and in which state sovereignty was deficient. Influenced by colonial motivations and ideologies these humanitarians attempted to reshape entire communities and nations through reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes. The book draws on the activities of a wide range of secular and religious organisations and philanthropic foundations in the US and Europe including the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, the Quakers, Save the Children, the Near East Relief, the American Women's Hospitals, the League of Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The third volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World covers the volatile period between 1900 and 1945 when the United States emerged as a world power and American engagements abroad flourished in new and consequential ways. Showcasing the most innovative approaches to both traditional topics and emerging themes, leading scholars chart the complex ways in which Americans projected their growing influence across the globe; how others interpreted and constrained those efforts; how Americans disagreed with each other, often fiercely, about foreign relations; and how race, religion, gender, and other factors shaped their worldviews. During the early twentieth century, accelerating forces of global interdependence presented Americans, like others, with a set of urgent challenges from managing borders, humanitarian crises, economic depression, and modern warfare to confronting the radical, new political movements of communism, fascism, and anticolonial nationalism. This volume will set the standard for new understandings of this pivotal moment in the history of America and the world.

Christian Homeland focuses on the involvement of clergy and prominent laity of the Episcopal Church in Middle Eastern affairs, both religious and political, between the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) and the Second Arab-Israeli War (1956-1957), with a brief epilogue covering additional events up to the present day. As the birthplace of the Christian faith, the Middle East had always been an area of fascination to church people in the West, and with the expansion of American diplomatic and commercial interests into the Mediterranean in the early nineteenth century, Episcopalians and other American Protestants felt called to similarly export their religious values into the region. Beginning in the 1830s, Episcopalians established mission posts in Athens and Constantinople (Istanbul), from which they sought to convert Muslims and Jews to Christianity. Having failed to achieve any appreciable evangelistic success with non-Christians, they soon turned their attention to reforming the ancient churches of the East instead. Later assisted by the Church of England's missionary bishopric in Jerusalem, a small, but influential corps of Episcopalians dedicated themselves to keeping church members informed about the Middle East, particularly the status of the region's Christian population, well into the twentieth century. This book analyses how the theological ideas held by Episcopal church leaders not only guided missionary and religious activities, but also influenced their denomination's response to major social and political questions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries issues such as immigration into the United States, genocide, wartime refugee relief, anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Palestinian Nakba.