Includes bibliographical references (p. [693]-741 and index.

Chronology -- Prologue: A passage to glory -- Introduction: Recovering a pivotal past -- Pt. 1: Early America encounters the Middle East. A mortal and mortifying threat ; The hostile and ethereal Orient ; A crucible of American identity ; Illuminating and emancipating the world -- Pt. 2: The Middle East and antebellum America. Confluence and conflict ; Manifest Middle Eastern destiny ; Under American eyes -- Pt. 3: The Civil War and Reconstruction. Fission ; Rebs and Yanks on the Nile ; The trumpet that never calls retreat ; American onslaught ; Resurgence -- Pt. 4: The age of imperialism. Empires at dawn ; Imperial piety ; Imperial myths ; A region renamed and reordered -- Pt. 5: America, the Middle East, and the Great War. Spectators of catastrophe ; Action or nonaction? ; An American movement is born ; Arise, o Arabs, and awake! ; The first Middle East peace process ; Fantasies revived -- Pt. 6: Oil, war, and ascendancy. From Bibles to drill bits ; An insoluble conflict evolves ; A torch for the Middle East ; The Middle East and the man from Missouri -- Pt. 7: In search of Pax Americana. Harmony and hegemony ; The thirty years' war -- Epilogue: A profound and visceral gratitude.

Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, featuring original maps and over sixty photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land stretching from Morocco to Iran, from the Persian Gulf to the Bosporus.--From publisher description.