Nearest East: American Millenialism and Mission to the Middle East (Politics History & Social Chan) - Softcover

Kieser, Hans-Lukas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439902232 ISBN 13: 9781439902233

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Discusses how missionaries and evangelical politics influenced American government policy in the Middle East

About this title

Book Description:

Long before oil interests shaped American interaction with the Middle East, the U.S. had a strong influence on the late Ottoman and post-Ottoman region. Covering the period from approximately 1800 to the 1970s, Hans-Lukas Kieser’s compelling Nearest East tells the story of this intimate, identity-building relationship between the U.S. and the Near East.

Kieser chronicles how American missionaries worked to implement their belief in Biblical millennialism, enlightened modernity, and a modern Zion-Israel. Millennialism was part of an American identity that constituted itself religiously in the interaction with and the representation of the “cradle of Zion.” As such, "going Near East" was—at least to American evangelical Protestants—in some ways more important than colonizing the American West. However, many Ottoman Muslims felt threatened by the American missionaries perceiving their successful institutions as an estranging challenge from the outside.

Measuring the long twisted road from the missionary Zion-builders of the early 19th century to the privileged US-Israeli partnership in the late 20th century, Nearest East looks carefully on both sides of the relationship. Kieser uses a wide range of Ottoman, Turkish, French, German and other sources, unfamiliar to most Anglophone readers, to tell this story that will appeal to historians of all stripes.

About the Author:

Hans-Lukas Kieser is Adjunct Professor (Privatdozent) for Modern History at the University of Zurich. He is editor of Turkey beyond Nationalism, a coeditor (with Dominik J. Schaller) of The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah and the author of Der verpasste Friede (The Squandered Peace).

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1439902232
• ISBN 13: 9781439902233
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224