Russian Elections

The amazing part of course is that he's not even running in these elections. He's omnipresent and yet not part of it. He designed it, yet is completely outside of it. He is omniscient and all powerful. Could he be...?

The Eagle and the Beetle

by Jean de La Fontaine
translated by Gordon Pirie

an amazing translation, witty, fast-paced, perfectly balanced and full of unexpected rhymes! Enjoy...

An eagle once swooped down to catch
A rabbit, who made off with due dispatch
Towards his lair. It wasn’t near,
And he despaired of getting there
In time, when going past a beetle’s hole,
He thought: ‘Why not?’
And in he shot.
Don’t ask me how a beetle’s hole
Could possibly accommodate a rabbit.
It couldn’t; and the eagle,
landing there, could grab it
And extract it by the tail.
The rabbit gave a squeal,
And looked up at the bird in mute appeal.
The beetle, who had watched this scene,
Was moved to intervene. He had a strong
Regard for Master Rabbit – they had long
Been friendly neighbours in the grass –
And when he saw him in this desperate pass,
The insect spoke up fearlessly and said:
‘Queen of the Birds, I can’t, of course,
Prevent you taking off my friend by force;
But as one flying creature to another,
I beg you, spare this wingless quadruped,
Who is my friend and brother.’
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The eagle didn’t say a word –
Just knocked the beetle over with her wing,
And took off with the rabbit. Stirred
By indignation now, and wondering
How to avenge his friend, the beetle took off too.
Up to the eagle’s nest he flew.
She wasn’t here; her eggs were, though,
And striking at the very spring
Of aquilinity, he broke them every one.
The eagle, when she found what had been done,
Uttered such piercing cries of woe
As set the hills and valleys echoing
For miles around. And not to know
The culprit only made it worse:
No one to curse,
No one to be revenged upon.
The wind dispersed her useless cries.
With all maternal prospects gone,
A barren year stretched mournfully ahead
And it was long before she dried her eyes
Or would be comforted.
Next year she nested higher still.
The beetle’s memory was long: he searched until
He found it, and revenged the rabbit’s death
A second time. You should have heard
The strident lamentations of the injured bird!
For months no local echo could draw breath.
At last she sought Jove’s help, thinking
She had some right to it, considering
The hours he’d kept her
Perched on his sceptre
Or standing at his feet with outspread wing,
Or times she’d carried that young son of Troas,
Ganymede, upon her back –
Or so at least the painters like to show us.
She thought that if she laid them on Jove’s knee,
Her eggs would be secure from all attack.
And wouldn’t you agree?
What enemy would dare
To come and break them there?
None did. Instead, the beetle dropped a turd
Upon the unhatched offspring of the bird,
And Jove, in shaking off the mess,
Shook off the eggs as well.
Who could express
The mother’s feelings now? She dared to tell
Her master that she’d leave his court,
And go and live in desert places,
And more extravagances of the sort
That females rise to in these cases.
Jove was abashed, and cast about in vain
For what might ease her pain.
He called a meeting, and the beetle came
And put his point of view. They tried to make
The eagle see that she had been to blame.
She wouldn’t hear of it; so, for the sake
Of peace and quiet, Jove decreed
That eagles, from now on, should breed
Much earlier in the year, when beetles, like moles,
Are underground, and fast asleep inside their holes.

A Curious Quote

from Floating Medicine Chests by Steven Shapin, a review of
Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine and Science in the Dutch Golden Age by Harold Cook

In 1617, the governors of the Dutch East India Company placed an order for goods to be procured by their agents. The shopping list included a hundred thousand bags of black pepper and thousands of pounds of other sorts of pepper; as much in the way of cloves, ginger and cinnamon as the ships could carry; 1000 barrels of nutmeg and 300 of mace; 3000 pounds of cassia wood (closely related to cinnamon); 6000 pounds of camphor; and the same amount of the ginger-like galingale. That sort of cargo came from Asia: the pepper from Kerala, Java or Sumatra; the cassia probably from India or Sri Lanka; and the other spices mainly from the Moluccan (or Spice) Islands. They were extremely profitable goods: nutmeg sold for three hundred times more in Amsterdam than it cost Dutch merchants in the Spice Islands. And they were luxury goods: in Restoration London a pound of nutmeg went at wholesale for the present-day equivalent of £46; cloves for £76. Nutmeg was so valuable that the Treaty of Breda, ending the second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667, delivered the tiny nutmeg island of Run to the Dutch in exchange for another island colony in America then known as New Amsterdam. When Samuel Pepys inspected a captured Dutch East India Company ship, seized in 1665, he was amazed by its cargo: ‘The greatest wealth . . . that a man can see in the world. Pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it; and in cloves and nutmegs, I walked above the knees; whole rooms full . . . As noble a sight as ever I saw in my life.’

Just seen: Enrico Rava at Birdland

VM: A wonderful evening at Birdland with friends. Rava's 2004 Easy Living is VERY HIGHLY recommended, but not in MP3 format on an iPod but in real CD quality.

by Ben Rattliff of the New York Times
There are no casting directors in jazz, but sometimes you see a pair of musicians who could have been brought together by one: for example, Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani, the Italian trumpeter and pianist.
Late on Thursday night at Birdland, they performed a few songs by themselves to open a set, and their notes and even their rests had character. Mr. Bollani kept a steady, impatient motor in his right hand, giving the songs their rhythm and dynamics; Mr. Rava draped warm melody over them, giving his individual notes a glow or a bitterness.
But even in a language beyond music, that of gestures and body language, they embodied basic character opposites. They formed an odd couple we might see in movies: Mr. Bollani, 35 — who in fact has a sideline career in Italy as a comedian — played fidgety compulsion; Mr. Rava, 68, played a silvery hippie, all sageness and whispers.
A couple of Mr. Rava’s pieces had explicit connections to film. One was written to suggest Fellini; another, “In Search of Titina,” was dedicated to Charlie Chaplin, and in its jerky, stop-and-start, staccato motions Mr. Bollani really showed his skill, as well as his sense of history.
Hands working in frenetic coordination, he seemed to be connecting very old and very recent languages of jazz, from Fats Waller to Don Pullen to Brad Mehldau. (The song can be found on a duo album by the two musicians, “The Third Man,” just released by ECM.)
But even three songs in, when the duo became a quartet with an American rhythm section — the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Paul Motian — the Italians kept a semblance of their dramatic characters within the group, without being restricted by them. They played older songs of Mr. Rava’s, with sweet and witty melodies: he is a true songwriter, and this band demonstrated an earthy, elegant, funny kind of jazz, without intending to be difficult.
In “Secrets,” a ballad, Mr. Rava began a solo, the rhythm section went into double time, and his aggression came forward: he played loud, short, pointed phrases, and Mr. Bollani and Mr. Motian locked into a groove. Another excellent piece, “Algir Dalbughi,” was a kind of lampoon boogie-woogie pinned together by Mr. Grenadier’s walking bass line; the band almost took it apart, with Mr. Bollani’s drifting chords and Mr. Motian’s freer and freer sketching of four-to-the-bar rhythm.
They closed with a song called “Happiness Is to Win a Big Prize in Cash,” an orderly 32-bar waltz, and it was Mr. Motian’s moment. He played a loose, one-chorus solo on the drums and cymbals that observed the curve of the theme, from beginning to end. He treated the song as a song, and he was disarmingly simple about it.
Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani perform again tonight, with Larry Grenadier, Paul Motian and the saxophonist Mark Turner, at Birdland, 315 West 44th Street, Clinton; (212) 581-3080, birdlandjazz.com.

Just seen: Things We Lost in the Fire

Amazing movie! The first-time writer Loeb (at least according to IMDB) created a wonderfully paced film, with profoundly simple and intense dialogues, amazing silent sequences. Acting is nothing short of miraculous: Halle Berry should have been nominated for an Oscar for this brooding yet powerful performance, but I think this role is all to close to her 'Monster's Ball' role.
Benicio del Toro reconfirms his understated intensity as a complicated actor who rarely has adequate material to work on. The music he listens to in his headphones is very cool (Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Lou Reed...)
A MUST SEE.

Just seen: Cassandra's Dream

Woody Allen may one day beat his icon Ingmar Bergman in the quantity game. The number of works Mr. Allen releases is steadily increasing. The regularity of the additions is quite astonishing. The star availability is enviable. Very soon, if not already, Kevin Bacon needs to start worry about Mr. Allen's better suitability for the Game of Six Degrees.
The movie itself is definitely a very old MGM film noir slightly updated for the new century. What's remained is very good: fast pace, chatty dialogues, straightforward arcs (or straight lines) for all characters, some memorable acting, occasionally suspenseful music. What's left out is the cinematography (no glorious black and white, no shadows - just bleak colors and forgetable scenery; memorable acting by all cast members, no matter how small they are - that has been replaced by star cast trying to be good boys and girls for Uncle Woody in straightjackets of Allen's script.
On the surface, the movie is not any different from, say, Manhattan Murder Mystery, where similarly small story played out by a very small cast. I think, the dialogues are now less punchy, less memorable, less engaging. I may have changed too. I may now expecting much from Woody Allen who does not have to make every movie a chef d'oeuvre.

Putin's Role Model?

at the age of 81, Fidel finally announced that he is stepping down from power.

Racist Crimes in Moscow on the rise

Skinheads give the Nazi salute during their training outside Moscow, in this June 16, 2004 file photo. Russia has seen a marked rise in racism and xenophobia over the past several years, and with Ultranationalist groups celebrating Adolph Hitler's birthday on upcoming Saturday April 21, 2007, a leading Moscow university has advised foreign students to remain in their dormitories because of fears of ethnic violence. (Sergey Ponomarev/AP Photo)

"Le bilan des cinquante premiers jours de l'année est terrifiant", s'alarme Alexandre Verkhovsky, directeur du Centre Sova de lutte contre la xénophobie, en précisant : "Il y a eu 25 meurtres à caractère raciste contre des étrangers ou des Russes "d'apparence non-slave" en moins de deux mois en Russie", dont 13 à Moscou.

Du Caucase ou d'Asie centrale, ils sont pourtant de plus en plus nombreux à venir s'installer à Moscou pour profiter du boom économique de la capitale, toujours en quête de main-d'oeuvre bon marché. "Les nouveaux arrivants sont davantage vulnérables", ajoute Alexandre Verkhovsky. "Il y a dix ans, les ressortissants de l'ex-URSS arrivaient à Moscou en parlant russe. C'étaient, en quelque sorte, encore des citoyens soviétiques. Aujourd'hui, les nouveaux travailleurs étrangers maîtrisent moins bien la langue. Ils sont donc dans une situation de précarité qui les fragilise encore plus."

Les autorités municipales ont du mal à reconnaître l'ampleur de cette vague de violence anti-étrangers. Cette semaine, Vladimir Pronine, chef du département de l'intérieur de la ville de Moscou, a estimé qu'il s'agit d'un problème que "toutes les grandes capitales multiethniques d'Europe connaissent". "Plutôt que de remercier tous ces travailleurs qui occupent à Moscou des boulots dont personne ne voudrait, on les poignarde à mort dans les rues !", s'insurge, dans la presse, Soyun Sadykov, président d'une association de la diaspora azérie.

Moscou compterait quelques milliers de skinheads, pour la plupart des jeunes de moins de 25 ans. Ils n'appartiennent pas à des organisations hiérarchisées mais se réunissent, souvent par le biais d'Internet, pour des soirées de "nettoyage", puis disparaissent avant de se fondre dans un nouveau groupe. Depuis octobre, le nouveau procureur en chef de Moscou semble s'intéresser de plus près aux meurtres à caractère raciste. Plusieurs skinheads ont été arrêtés pour "violence ethnique" ou "propagande haineuse".

A Curious Quote

from Praise Yah by Eliot Weinberger, a review of
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter


Out of the mouths of babes; apple of the eye; fire and brimstone; out of joint; sleep the sleep of death; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; whiter than snow; oh that I had wings like a dove for then would I fly away; the meek shall inherit the earth; tender mercies; clean hands and a pure heart; I have been young and now am old; my cup runneth over; many a time; clean gone; the days of old; I am a worm and no man; his heart’s desire; the heavens declare the glory of god; go down to the sea in ships; at their wits’ end; the valley of the shadow of death; make a joyful noise; go from strength to strength . . .

The 1611 King James Authorised Version of the Book of Psalms – and of course of the entire Bible – is so deep in the English language that we no longer know when we are repeating its phrases. Inextricable from the beliefs and practices of its faithful for four hundred years, it has been transformed from the translation of a holy book into a holy book itself. Poets, however, know from experience that there are no definitive texts, and over the centuries an assembly of angels has been singing the Psalms in its own way: Wyatt, Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke, Campion, Milton, Crashaw, Vaughan, Smart, Clare, Hopkins and Kipling among them. Some were setting lyrics to new tunes; some were performing metrical exercises with familiar material; some were expressing private prayer; some were simply writing a poem. St Augustine said that all things written in the Psalms are mirrors of ourselves and it was inevitable that, when English poets were still largely Christian believers, they would look into the mirror of this foundational anthology of poetry, as Chinese poets looked into the Confucian Book of Songs.

Egypt: Alexandria Library

Egypt: Alexandria Qaitbay Citadel

This citadel was built on the very spot where the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the world, used to be. It fell out of use, was damaged in the earthquake some time in the middle ages (14th century), and by the time the sultan Qaitbay got to it, there were nothing but ruins. Supposedly, the citadel is built using the stones of that wonder. So who knows...

Egypt: Alexandria

Egypt: Karnak

Photos by Valera Meylis © 2008

Egypt: Hatshepsut

Egypt: Valley of the Kings

Egypt: Sakkara

The pyramids here betray sudden rupture in technological advances. After the splendor and grandeur of the Kheops's Pyramid with its processed granite blocks, amazing stone cutting, sheer size and impossibility of the design with nothing else, nothing else! to match in the rest of their lives four thousand years ago. And then it was all gone. Replaced at first with the heaps of stones in feeble imitation (just like the pyramids on the pictures above), the decision was made to abandon building them altogether, and, instead, to go underground. Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens in Luxor is the next step in that direction.

Egypt: Memphis

The only remains of the ancient capital of Egypt is this puny museum that is a required stop on every itinerary. Memphis ain't what it used to be :) Ramses II's statue with broken off nipples and feet attracts tourists. There's a guard ever present by the door. Every picture in every book that shows his statue in full includes that person in a traditional Arab attire - galabiyeh.

Egypt: Salesmanship

The poor tourist kept ignoring the guy with a donkey from the very gates in the back of the picture. But the salesmaster supremo never gives up!...

Egypt: The Sphinx

Again, the loneliness of that creature disturbs. His nose has been destroyed by a cannon as a punishment (which may be good as the smell of horses, donkeys and camels all around him is overwhelming). The Turkish, British and French soldiers used it as a target for shooting. The nearby temple is strangely disconnected from it. The light show at night has all the cultured taste of the Japanese brides in Disneyland. Not an ancient wonder of the world, yet very, very haunting.

Egypt: The Pyramids of Giza

No pictures will ever do justice to the mind-blowing grandeur of the Kheops pyramid. The structure belittles you, humiliates you and simply ignores you. It has been chopped at, had its outer limestone cover removed, the top stone stolen, cornerstones reused for other projects. A hole has been cut by a 16th century pasha that is now used to feed tourists single-line into the small dark chamber in exchange for 20 bucks, in addition to the view only fee. No one knows why, no one knows how.
The awe I experienced outside and inside the pyramid is unprecedented. Incomprehension baffles. To have a sudden surge of technological marvel for two dynasties only, and then a total collapse of these skills (see the pics of pyramids later).
My guide mentioned of course the fact that the Pyramids are one of the seven wonders of the world, but could name only two other wonders. Needless to say, my interest to what he had to parrot dropped almost immediately.

Egypt: Cairo

Just seen: Atonement

Finally, a worthy cinematic rendition of Ian McEwan's novels. For those who read his brooding inner state ruminations it would be very hard to imagine a faithful translation to the all audiovisual medium. Despite the somewhat predictable Hollywoodish grandeur and occasional sentimentalism, the story stays very very tight. Playing with the time allows the scriptwright create this wonderful sensation of omniscience of the viewer, while preserving the most intimate spaces we are allowed in our lives - our conversations with ourselves.
James McAvoy, who impressed me in the Last King of Scotland, gave here a mesmerizing performance - all dreamlike, making the agonizing British fear of awkwardness almost palpable, yet revealing a sturdy sense of self behind the facade.
Vanessa Redgrave's cameo appeareance alone is worth the price of admission.
A MUST SEE.

Now if only someone who could do a justice to A child in Time or to Comfort of Strangers.

P.S. There are plenty of shitty movies that I watch in between, I just don't feel like writing about them at all :) so do not get put off by most of the movies that show up here as being a MUST SEE :)

Seoul's Loss

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — An overnight fire destroyed a 610-year-old landmark that was considered the top national treasure, officials said. Police said the cause of the blaze was unclear but one official said arson was suspected.

The fire broke out tonight and burned down the wooden structure at the top of the Namdaemun gate that once formed part of a wall that encircled the capital. Some 360 firefighters fought to bring the blaze under control, according to Lee Sang-joon, an official with the National Emergency Management Agency. No one was injured, he said.

Lee said that arson was suspected in the blaze. However, Kim Young-soo, the head of a police station in central Seoul handling the case, told a televised news conference said it was too early to make that conclusion.

The South Korean government opened the landmark gate, officially named Sungnyemun, to the public in 2006 for first time in nearly a century.

The gate had been off-limits to the public since Japanese colonial authorities built an electric tramway nearby in 1907. Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula in 1910-45.
The gate was renovated in the 1960s and again in 2005.

Here's what's left:


VM: This somewhat blurry picture was taken by me in Seoul in July 2006

Just seen: Michael Clayton

What a fantastic movie! Head and shoulders above pretentious noir of Coen Brothers and frothy sentimanetal idiocy of Juno (yeah, saw that too). I am very glad that despite the substantial presence in the Oscar voters of those who dream of being Javier Bardem's crazy character or those who root for Juno, the girl they all would have killed for in their high school geeky periods, there are still those who see the value of a solid film-making. Solid as in the crazy 70s where everything went and everything was possible. The script, the acting, the thrilling understatement of a film that never lets go of superb narrative, strong emotional grip and awe-inspiring cinematography.
Clooney, Wilkinson, Swinton are truly mesmerizing, their nominations were a total no-brainer.
A MUST SEE.

Just Seen: Gone Baby Gone

A very suspenseful movie with good actors, music and camerawork, which is at its best when it is simply moving around a neighborhood of Boston showing its people whose lives are also in suspension. The title of the movie refers to quite a different baby gone, but by the time you figure it out, the movie is over. Ed Harris brings all the intensity of his inner springs forth in this role, while Casey Affleck seems to be loaded with cold medicine, both emotionally and physically.

The question that the book/movie ponders is the balance between what one thinks is right to do vs. what is right to do according to others; personal integrity vs well-being of others.

A MUST SEE!

Poem of the day

Miracle at Cana

What's seldom said about the miracle
At Cana is that too much wine was made.

Consider, Jesus tells the waiting servants
To fill six pots with water, each pot holding
Two or three firkins, about twenty gallons.

The liquid then drawn out is found to be
Wine of choice vintage, and the bridegroom's praised
For keeping back the best stuff till the last.

But six huge pots, each holding twenty gallons,
Would make nine hundred pints (stronger than beer)
With sixty more for luck. Remember also
This wine is called for only when the guests
Have drunk the booze the bridegroom has provided,
So that presumably a merry time
Has been already had by everyone.

What need to drown in more wine than enough?
The reason, so some say, is Messianic.
The new age was to be an age of plenty
And Israel's saviour might well usher in
The good times with a great feast for his people.

What better place than Cana for its start
And at a wedding too? The world's a wedding
As we all know, some of us more than others,
And all like wine, some more than others of course.

And yet, it seems to me, an irritation
Shows in what Jesus answers when his mother,
Beside him, nags and worries at his sleeve:

"They have no wine." "Woman, what's that to me?"
Wasn't he fresh arrived in Galilee
From that Dead Sea encounter with the devil
Where starving from a fast he had been tempted

To turn stones into bread to feed himself?
"My hour is not yet come." There, can't you see
The shrug with which the son has turned away,
Leaving his mother to instruct the waiters
To do whatever he might say they should?
Perhaps it was indifference, nothing more,
Turned water into wine that day at Cana,

Either divine indifference or just knowing
water can taste like wine when you are drunk.

ROBERT NYE

US Elections

Iraq: Woman Suicide Bomber

Iraqi boys are photographing the remains of a woman-suicide-bomber...

Just watched: Shoot Em Up

what a silly silly movie, but immensely watchable with great special effects and delicious Paul Giamatti. Monica Belucci's tits play a crucial role in this movie as well, though we never see them fully, just sideways. Speaking of sideways, Giamatti's villain delivers a great caustic aside with reference to the breakthrough movie - fun, fun, fun! Watch a trailer

TLS: America in the Middle East

Into Barbary
M. E. Yapp
review of POWER, FAITH, FANTASY. America in the Middle East, 1776 to the present. By Michael B. Oren. 672pp. Norton. $17.95; distributed in the UK by Wiley. 978 0 393 05826 0.

From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." So sang the United States marines in the days when they still marched to war - or so, at least, Hollywood would have us believe was the case during the Second World War. In reality they probably sang something rather coarser, but to a schoolboy entranced by Americans the sound and spectacle were thrilling enough, if rather mysterious. The reference to Montezuma, one eventually learned, was an allusion to the 1847 Mexican war and the story of the marines' encounter with Tripoli is told in some detail by Michael B. Oren in this long and colourful history of America's involvement with the Middle East.
The first problem with which the young Republic had to deal in the region arose from the operations of the Barbary corsairs who, from their ports on the North African coast in what are now the states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, attacked the trading vessels of other powers, seized their cargoes, and enslaved their crews and passengers. When US ships fell victim to the corsairs, the choice was straightforward: pay up or fight. As the Americans had no navy, they had to pay the blackmail demanded. The humiliation rankled; moreover, the corsairs were encouraged to attack more American vessels. In 1801, the USA went to war but the expedition failed ignominiously and American prestige suffered accordingly. "There is but one language which can be held to these people," wrote William Eaton, the belligerent US consul in Tunis, "and that is terror." In 1805, Eaton assembled a small and variegated force, which included nine Americans, and marched from Egypt against Tripoli with a view to securing a change of regime. He got as far as the port of Darna, which he assaulted and captured with the loss of two marines. President Jefferson, however, decided to make a deal with the existing ruler of Tripoli and reversed the policy of the disgusted Eaton, who was evacuated together with his troops, leaving only the memory of the assault to be celebrated in marine song and legend. In 2003, a special marine task force sent to capture Saddam's home town of Takrit was nicknamed "Task Force Tripoli". But the Barbary story has a triumphant ending: the United States did build a navy, and, in 1815, a powerful squadron under Stephen Decatur forced the submission of the Barbary states, released the American captives, and ended the payment of tribute by the United States.

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Oren dwells on the story of America's encounter with the corsairs for three reasons. In the first place, the problem, the attempted solutions, the debates and the course of events all seem strangely, even eerily familiar to those who study later American adventures in the Middle East. Secondly, he derives a moral from the drawn out struggle with the corsairs: paying tribute may be cheaper but it is better to fight. The decision to fight salvaged the prestige of the United States and gave that country the will to build a navy which became the basis of her future power. "The seminal lesson of the Barbary Wars", he remarks later, was that "providing arms to pirate states in the Middle East only produces more piracy", a statement intended to apply to Iran and not to Turkey, Israel or any other recipient of American arms in the region. And, thirdly, Oren believes that the episode demonstrates the importance of the Middle East to the United States from the earliest times, an argument which forms one of the principal contentions of his book. Writing of the present day, he argues that "the United States is extensively, profoundly, and perhaps even existentially involved in the Middle East" and refers to "the paramount importance of the Middle East". Although part of the basis for that contention derives from contemporary conditions, it is very much Oren's belief that America's concerns go back far into the history of her dealings with the region.
The conflict with the Barbary states was about power, the first factor in Oren's epitome of US involvement in the Middle East. The second factor is faith, and is exemplified in the activities of American missionaries in the region. Evangelical Protestants could not fail to be interested in the fate of Palestine, and their interest was enhanced by the prevalence of Restorationism, that doctrine which held that the Second Coming of Christ must be preceded by the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. American missionaries, however, found it difficult to establish themselves in Palestine or to accomplish much in the way of conversion. Their principal impact was in the field of education and was most visible in Istanbul (Robert College) and Beirut (the Syrian Protestant College, later better known as the American University of Beirut). The historian George Antonius ascribed great importance to the educational role of the American missionary schools and colleges, and saw them as an important factor not merely in the transmission of American ideas and values, but in the rise of the ideology of Arab nationalism. Subsequent historians challenged this thesis and ascribed a much more modest achievement to the American missionaries, but Oren repeats the Antonius view. Indeed, Oren also detects substantial American influence, via a few US mercenary soldiers, in the modernization of Egypt and the growth of Egyptian nationalism. No attempt is made to balance these arguments with any assessment of the contributions of British, French, Russian and other European missionaries and others to the development of the region, let alone to consider the role of internal or domestic influences. In these areas, as in others, there is persistent exaggeration of the importance of the American impact on the Middle East.
The third factor is fantasy, under which heading Oren subsumes a popular view of the Middle East derived from The Thousand and One Nights and books and films which portray a Middle East of luxurious and tyrannical rulers, dashing sheikhs, swooning maidens, belly dancers, deserts, tents, camels and palaces.
It is difficult to know how widespread or influential such visions of the Middle East might have been. One would have thought that the principal source of information for most early Americans concerning the Middle East was the Bible, which, while it may not be an especially useful guide to the contemporary Middle East any more than is the Koran, does not feature prominently the elements mentioned. And the principal impression which a careful reader of The Thousand and One Nights might retain is of an exceptionally clever woman. Moreover, Hollywood films sometimes give a much more diverse and more subtle impression of the Middle East than the word "fantasy" suggests. Rather than fantasy one would like to have seen more emphasis given to pure ignorance as a major factor in the American view of the Middle East. It may be that ignorance allows fantasy to fill the mind, as it may also permit the invasion of what Oren refers to as ideals, which he emphasizes as one of the two poles of the United States's approach to the region, the other being interest.
Ignorance, ideals and interest coincide neatly in the episode of the Greek War of Independence. Popular enthusiasm in the United States (which was shared by President John Quincy Adams) was wholly pro-Greek, but at the same time it was perceived that any intervention on behalf of the Greeks would jeopardize the position of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire, and also the burgeoning US trade with the Empire. There were no US vessels at the decisive naval Battle of Navarino, but the United States secured a commercial treaty soon afterwards. The triumph of interest over idealism in the case of Greece makes Oren's description of the traditional role of the United States in the Middle East as one of liberator and champion of minority rights and of the independence of Ottoman provinces like Greece and Hungary rather odd, the more so in view of the circumstance that Hungary was taken by Austria from the Ottomans more than eighty years before the birth of the United States. Nor is one convinced by Oren's assertion that the United States continued thereafter to work for the freedom of the people of the region. Some individuals may have done so, but official US policy remained characterized by a steadfast refusal to become involved.
Another example of the same conjunction of ignorance, ideals and interest is provided by President Woodrow Wilson's intervention in the Middle East during and immediately after the First World War. Oren bemoans America's failure to declare war on the Ottomans and consequently her loss of an opportunity to play a more active role in the shaping of the new political structure in the region.
In fact, the United States had ample opportunity to play a considerable role in the region and could have taken over the administration of Armenia, Constantinople and Palestine. But neither the American people nor Congress wanted the responsibility; in truth they were not very interested in the region. Wilson and his advisers knew little of the Middle East; no member of the celebrated Inquiry had any special knowledge of the region; and his expert on the Middle East was a classicist. Ignorance was accompanied by a few simple and, in Middle Eastern terms, useless axioms about democracy, self determination and anti-colonialism. The chief effect of Wilson's interventions was to delay a settlement of the region, to the disadvantage of almost everyone concerned. But the United States did manage to come out of the business with a share of Iraqi oil.
When the economic interest of the United States in the Middle East is discussed, it is trade in the period before the First World War that is cited first, and oil afterwards. Oren fails to make clear the significance of the oil factor in US policy. He appears to imply that Middle Eastern oil was required for use in the United States.

In fact, until the 1960s, the United States produced most of her own oil, and US oilmen did not want competition from cheaper Middle Eastern oil, much of which was produced by US companies and sold around the world. Middle Eastern oil was imported by the United States as a convenience rather than a necessity, a situation quite unlike that of the European powers. The oil was more important to the United States as a valuable source of foreign currency. Only when US domestic production was curtailed for reasons of cost and conservation did oil from the Middle East begin to play a significant, even vital, part in US consumption. In this way, during the 1960s, oil became one of the factors which gave the Middle East for the first time a large weight in the foreign policy of the United States. The other factors were the Cold War and the new salience of Israel.
The Cold War first drew the United States into the northern tier of the region in support of Iran and Turkey after Britain gave up the burden. The 1947 Truman Doctrine was a major step forward for Americans. Not until the mid 1950s did US interest in the southern, Arab Middle East become of major significance. At that time, the United States assumed a greater role in response to the spread of Soviet influence within the Arab states and the virtual extinction of British and French influence after the Suez fiasco. The Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957 signalled the change. America's commitment to Israel is also of much more recent date than is commonly supposed. The major part played by President Truman in the birth of the state of Israel was inspired more by a desire to rid himself of Zionist importunities than by any great desire to see a Jewish state in the region. The key date in the development of US policy towards Israel is 1967, when Israel's dramatic and total victory over her Arab neighbours inspired a wave of sentiment in her favour and paved the way for the United States to identify her as an ally and a strategic asset in the region, a long way indeed from John Foster Dulles's dismissal of Israel as a millstone round the neck of the USA.

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Only a hundred pages of this large book deal with the period when the Middle East finally became important to the USA and the USA to the Middle East. Oren does not discuss the mechanisms of Israeli influence in the United States and the extent to which US policy in the Middle East has become Israeli policy. He does not question his own assertions about the importance of the region to the

USA. He says little about the Iraq war and does not explain the great mystery of how a so-called war against (Islamic) terror had as its centrepiece the destruction of one of the principal secular barriers to its spread. His book should be read and enjoyed primarily as a diverting collection of anecdotes about the encounters of individual Americans with the Middle East over a period of more than 200 years. Most of them disliked the region, and its people.