American Friends of the Middle East: The CIA, US Citizens, and the Secret Battle for American Public Opinion in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1947–1967

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUGH WILFORD
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Private Group ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Characteristic Values ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict

In 1951, the CIA secretly funded the creation of an ostensibly private group of US citizens called the American Friends of the Middle East (AFME). Pro-Arab and anti-Zionist in orientation, AFME was repeatedly attacked by pro-Israel groups before seeing its links to the CIA exposed by investigative journalists in 1967. Drawing on recent scholarship about “state–private networks” and the cultural history of US–Middle East relations, this article examines the origins of AFME, its characteristic values and relations with the CIA, and the reasons for the decline of its influence vis-à-vis the emergent “Israel lobby.”

Making Tools for Transmission: Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo’s Papermakers, Copyists and Booksellers

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-319
Author(s):  
Anthony T. Quickel
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Book Production ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

Abstract A growing body of scholarship regarding the nature of book production and ownership has greatly aided in advancing understandings of the intellectual and cultural history of the Middle East. The majority of these studies, however, focuses on the technical and art historical aspects of book production. This article seeks to take such scholarship a step further and explore the nature of the actual places where books were obtained in Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo. Using chronicles and annalistic sources, it will show that the traditionally understood paper markets had a far more extensive role in book production. Furthermore, the article will show that multiple centers in medieval Cairo were engaged in various tasks related to the creation of texts. A discussion of the extant corpus of secondary literature will be offered on the basis of these conclusions.

scholarly journals João Barbalho school group: place for promotion of education in hygienic standards (Pernambuco, 1922-1931)

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 601-620
Author(s):  
Adlene Silva Arantes
Keyword(s):  
Physical Education ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
Intelligence Tests ◽  
Educational Legislation ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
School Group ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Education In Brazil

We seek to understand the medical orientation to promote hygienic education in the João Barbalho school, a structure created to be the model of a republican school institution in Pernambuco. The period covers the creation of the Group and the process of expansion of these institutions in Pernambuco. Required documents, reports of school groups, educational legislation, and hygiene theses of the studied period were analyzed. This research is based theoretically and methodologically on the assumptions of cultural history, and studies related to the history of education in Brazil. We perceive that Pernambuco school groups were formed late compared to groups from other Brazilian states. To ensure the proper functioning guidelines, should be followed: the practice of physical education, anthropometric examinations, and intelligence tests to establish the profile of students for the constitution of homogeneous classes intellectually, physically and racially.

The Future of the Past

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Borrut
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Sacred History

Writing the history of the first centuries of Islam poses thorny methodological problems, because our knowledge rests upon narrative sources produced later in Abbasid Iraq. The creation of an “official” version of the early Islamic past (i.e., a vulgate), composed contemporarily with the consolidation of Abbasid authority in the Middle East, was not the first attempt by Muslims to write about their origins. This Abbasid-era version succeeded when previous efforts vanished, or were reshaped, in rewritings and enshrined as the “official” version of Islamic sacred history. Attempts to impose different historical orthodoxies affected the making of this version, as history was rewritten with available materials, partly determined by earlier generations of Islamic historians. This essay intends to discuss a robust culture of historical writing in eighth-century Syria and to suggest approaches to access these now-lost historiographical layers torn between memory and oblivion, through Muslim and non-Muslim sources.

The French Conversion

Worldview ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 20-21
Author(s):  
Servan-Schreiber
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Jugular Vein ◽  
Brute Force ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Embargo ◽  
New Phase

Has Machiavelli been translated into Arabic?" From this question, Servan- Schreiber goes on to cite the ways in which the oil embargo exposed Western European vulnerability and “isolated the only power which, in this hellish game, is to be feared, namely, America.” Combined with this, the October war in the Middle East brought new supremacy to Soviet arms and “upset the ratio of forces.” The effect is that “all the industrial countries have been grabbed by their jugular vein.” Servan-Schreiber cites the French analyst, Jean Fourastié, who claims: “A new phase of economic history, of the cultural history, of ideologies and political strategies declared itself in October, 1973. It started with a blockade … there remains only force.” The consequence may be the rule of brute force everywhere in domestic and international life. The Planet of the Apes. Servan-Schreiber contrasts Fourastié's view with that of Samuel Pisar, an American, who sees a collective progression of the planet through conflict. The course of reason may be a supreme challenge, but it is not superhuman. Servan-Schreiber admits to being torn between the two scenarios offered by Fourastié and Pisar.

From Blubber and Baleen to Buddha of the Deep: The Rise of the Metaphysical Whale

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Zelko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Large Carnivores ◽  
Theme Parks ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Specific Species ◽  
Western Democracies

Abstract Human attitudes to various nonhuman animals have varied considerably across cultures and throughout time. While some of our responses are undoubtedly instinctive and universal—a visceral fear of large carnivores or the feeling of spontaneous warmth for creatures exhibiting high degrees of neoteny—it is clear that our attitude toward specific species is largely shaped by our innate anthropomorphism: that is, when we think about animals, we are also thinking about ourselves. There are few better examples of this than the shifting attitudes toward whales and dolphins throughout the 20th century, particularly among citizens of Western democracies. This article narrates the cultural history of this development and demonstrates how the current enchantment with whales and dolphins is primarily the result of two broad—and related—cultural developments: the modern entertainment complex, particularly cinema, television, and aquatic theme parks; and the 1960s counterculture, with its potent blend of holistic ecology, speculative neuroscience, and mysticism. The result was the creation of what we might think of as the “metaphysical whale,” a creature who has inspired the abolitionist stance toward whaling.

The study of the Arab-Israeli conflict

1977 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Avi Shlaim
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political System ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
National Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The Military

A Head-on collision between two national movements; a clash between Western and Oriental cultures; disputes over territories, borders, maritime rights, property and refugees; intense mutual suspicion engendered by a long and tortuous history of strife; highly distorted images of the adversary; a chronically unstable pattern of regional politics; the intrusion of Great Power rivalry and a spiralling arms race: these are only some of the ingredients which account for the complexity and uniqueness of the Arab-Israeli conflict and make the Middle East the most volatile and explosive sub-system of the international political system. Here, in Michael Howard's phrase, is a “hell-brew to end all hell-brews”. The problem is a political scientist's paradise; a statesman's nightmare; and, for the military specialist, a matter for grisly, but absorbing concern.

scholarly journals The professionalization of Brazilian nursing in the written media of the end of the nineteenth century: a gender analysis

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1265-1271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Braga do Espírito Santo ◽  
Taka Oguisso ◽  
Rosa Maria Godoy Serpa da Fonseca
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Professional School ◽  
Gender Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship

The object is the relationship between the professionalization of Brazilian nursing and women, in the broadcasting of news about the creation of the Professional School of Nurses, in the light of gender. Aims: to discuss the linkage of women to the beginning of the professionalization of Brazilian nursing following the circumstances and evidence of the creation of the Professional School of Nurses analyzed from the perspective of gender. The news articles were analyzed from the viewpoint of Cultural History, founded in the gender concept of Joan Scott and in the History of Women. The creation of the School and the priority given in the media to women consolidate the vocational ideal of the woman for nursing in a profession subjugated to the physician but also representing the conquest of a space in the world of education and work, reconfiguring the social position of nursing and of woman in Brazil.

scholarly journals [Rev.] Doktorov B.Z. Never Ending Chats with Classics and Contemporaries. A Practice in Historical-Biographical Analysis: Monograph / B.Z. Doktorov. Moscow: TsSPiM publ., 2018

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-182
Author(s):  
Larissa A. Kozlova
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Short Summary ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Early Activity ◽  
Biographical Analysis

The book reviewed in this article is the result of many years of historical-sociological and historical-biographical studies conducted by B.Z. Doktorov. It contains generalizations of certain results of analyzing biographies, while also introducing the reader to the methodology and procedure of the historical-sociological pursuit. The book was written, in the words of the author himself, in the form of a “mental dialog” with the characters of the biographical narrative; it contains methodological clarifications, as well as descriptions of the creation of the texts included within the book. It contains the author’s previously published work, dedicated to American scientists who conducted studies of public opinion (G. Gallup, H. Cantril, D. Ogilvy), as well as Russian sociologists belonging to the four eldest generations (B.A. Grushin, V.A. Yadov, T.I. Zaslavskaya, Y.A. Levada, A.N. Alekseev, V.B. Golofast, G.S. Batygin). The early activity of the first generation is associated with a period of rebirth (second generation) for Russian sociology during the 1950’s and 1960’s. This review describes the origins of B.Z. Doktorov’s interest towards the research problems; a short summary of the book is given; described is the research methodology of a generational approach; also revealed is the importance of B.Z. Doktorov’s work when it comes to the history of Russian sociology and historical-biographical studies.

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