Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Policy Papers (Washington Institute for Near East Policy))

Martin S. Kramer

ISBN 10: 0944029493 / ISBN 13: 9780944029497

Published by Washington Inst for Near East Pol, 2001

About this Item

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.

Seller Inventory # G0944029493I4N00

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Policy Papers (Washington Institute for Near East Policy))
• Publisher: Washington Inst for Near East Pol
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0944029493
• ISBN 13: 9780944029497
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Weight: 0.76 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

On campuses throughout the United States, thousands of professors study and teach the Middle East. They fill the pages of journals, the shelves of libraries, and the minds of students with their paradigms, theories, and predictions. In Middle East crises, the media seek their opinions. Their enterprise is deemed a national resource: the federal government subsidizes over a dozen academic centers devoted to the Middle East.Yet for the past twenty years, Middle Eastern studies in America have been factories of error. The academics, blinded by their own prejudices and enslaved to the fashions of the disciplines, have failed to anticipate or explain any of the major developments in the Middle East. Within the field, hardly a voice dares to protest, but beyond it, each debacle chips away at academic's credibility. Middle Eastern studies have failed--at a time when understanding the Middle East has become crucial to America.In this iconoclastic exposé, Martin Kramer surveys the ruins of Middle Eastern studies, to ask how and why they went wrong. Ivory Towers on Sand is the most thorough critique of Middle Eastern studies ever published in the United States--and a necessary step toward their reconstruction.

About the Author

Martin Kramer, a Washington Institute Ira Weiner Fellow, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly and past director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.