History and Democracy of the Modern Middle East - HIST 235 Resource Guide

This program offers a global history of the oil industry and the issues intertwined with it, from early-20th-century prospecting in South America and the Middle East to war in Iraq. The origins and significance of OPEC figure prominently in the narrative, as do several historic and violent conflicts revolving around controlling sources or flows of oil: labor strikes in Latin America, Nasser's seizure of the Suez Canal, the Iran-Iraq war, and other pivotal events. Revealing interviews feature, among others, former OPEC leader Sheikh Ahmed Yamani and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Akins-who minces no words and calls oil a curse.

Although Jews and Arabs have claims to Palestine dating back centuries, the real contest was just starting when World War I broke out. At that time, few foresaw how strong it would become. The duration and intensity of what we now call the Arab–Israeli, or Palestinian–Israeli, conflict were due to the rise of nationalism in modern times.

Palestine is the historic homeland of the Jewish community. For five centuries – between around 1200 BC, when the Israelites, an immigrant Semitic group claiming descent from Abraham of Ur and led by the prophet Moses and his successor Joshua, settled in the area, and 722 BC, when conquered by the Assyrian king Sargon II – Palestine (then known as Canaan) was the centre of Israeli kingdoms.

The first contacts between the United States and the Middle East occurred during late-eighteenth-century treaty negotiations with the states of North Africa and were interspersed with sporadic naval conflicts. The first sustained relations, however, resulted from American missionary efforts in various parts of the region, starting in 1819 and growing in importance throughout the nineteenth century.

Compilation of documents related to Palestine, Israel, and other countries and regions in the Middle East.

This section of the WWW Virtual Library system was created, and is edited and maintained, by Dr. Wayne A.Selcher, Professor of International Studies Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA

The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection is a rich source of historical images of the Middle East. The majority of the images depict Palestine (present day Israel and the West Bank) from 1898 to 1946. Most of the collection consists of over 22,000 glass and film photographic negatives and transparencies created by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor firm, the Matson Photo Service. Over 1,000 photographic prints and eleven albums are also part of this collection.