Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a Communication professor at Fresno Pacific University and former Fulbright grantee to Jordan. Growing up in west Texas I was always fascinated with other countries. I encountered Arabic in college, and I quickly fell in love with a language and society that reminded me so much of my homeā€”in fact, the word ā€œhaboobā€ is used by Texas farmers and Bedouin herders alike to describe a violent dust storm. While I was teaching English in Amman, I realized how much I enjoy learning how different cultures come to understand one another. My driving passion is to explore the centuries-long rhetorical history tying Americans and Middle Easterners together in mutual webs of (mis)representation, and this topic has never been more relevant than today.


I wrote

More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East

By Randall Fowler,

Book cover of More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East

What is my book about?

Nowadays, the Middle East can seem a quite complicated place. Between ISIS and Iran, Arabs and Israelis, Kurds and Turks,ā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters

Randall Fowler Why did I love this book?

This edited volume features some of the worldā€™s leading scholars on the experiences of American missionaries in lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Covering the efforts of Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Mormons, and more, this book illuminates the messy interplay of religion, science, politics, and nationalism in the interactions between these missionaries and the native inhabitants they encountered. It dispels common myths that shroud this topic and shines a light on understudied issues such as the challenges of textual translation in cross-cultural contexts, the role of gender in evangelism, and competing visions of social change at work in education.

By Mehmet Ali Dogan (editor), Heather J. Sharkey (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked American Missionaries and the Middle East as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American missionary encounters in the Middle East set foundations for later U.S.-Middle Eastern relations. Missionaries presented examples of American culture to Middle Eastern peoples, just as they interpreted the Middle East for Americans back home. These engagements prompt larger questions about the consequences of American Christian cultural projection into the wider world. This volume focuses on regions that were once part of the Ottoman Empire in western Asia, the Balkans, and North Africa. Contributors explain the distinctly American dimensions of these missionary encounters, the cultural influences they exerted on the region, and theirā€¦


Book cover of America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East

Randall Fowler Why did I love this book?

A deeply interesting dive into the world of espionage and the early days of the CIA, this accessible book by Hugh Wilford provides an excellent entry point into the exciting movements, people, and ideologies that crosscut the Middle East in the years after World War II. Focusing especially on personalities like Kim Roosevelt and Miles Copeland, this book shows why many Arabs even today suspect the CIA may be behind far more than it lets on. For American audiences, this book will provide an intriguing journey into a world that is unfamiliar to most and fascinating to all, illuminating the role U.S. spy agencies played in creating the modern Middle East.

By Hugh Wilford,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked America's Great Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability,far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region's staunchest western ally.In America's Great Game , celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA's pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50s by tracing the work of the agency's three most influential,and colourful,officers in the Middle East. Kermitā€¦


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Book cover of Talland House

Talland House by Maggie Humm,

Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind herā€”a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lilyā€™s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, sheā€™s been a suffragetteā€¦

Book cover of The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East

Randall Fowler Why did I love this book?

A highly readable tome, Cooperā€™s account of how the oil politics of the 1970s revolutionized U.S. foreign policy and the Persian Gulf is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the political landscape of the Middle East. Cooper traces the personal interactions among the Shah of Iran, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and the House of Saud in the midst of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the consequent oil embargo, the formation of OPEC, and the early stirrings of revolution in Iran. Perhaps most helpful, this book dispels many misperceptions about Iran under the Shah while also showing how the United States played an integral role in weakening his regime prior to the 1979 revolution.

By Andrew Scott Cooper,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Oil Kings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ā€œRelying on a rich cache of previously classified notes, transcripts, cables, policy briefs, and memoranda, Andrew Cooper explains how oil drove, even corrupted, American foreign policy during a time when Cold War imperatives still applied,ā€* and tells why in the 1970s the U.S. switched its Middle East allegiance from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi royal family.

While America struggles with a recess ion, oil prices soar, revolution rocks the Middle East, European nations risk defaulting on their loans, and the world teeters on the brink of a possible global financial crisis. This is not a description of theā€¦


Book cover of Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy

Randall Fowler Why did I love this book?

The Arab-Israeli conflict can be bewildering for many Americans to wrap their head around. While there are a number of excellent books on the topic, I find Perceptions of Palestine to be a helpful, engaging diagnosis of the issue from a U.S. diplomatic perspective. Christison, a former CIA officer, provides an exhaustively researched and well-informed answer to the question of why the United States tends to favor Israel over the Palestinians in the realms of public opinion and policymaking. This account is both sensitive to the struggles of the Palestinian people while also recognizing the real-world limitations of American policymakers. No matter oneā€™s position on this issue, Christionā€™s book provides a welcome analysis of the tensions at play in conflicts over Israel-Palestine.

By Kathleen Christison,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Perceptions of Palestine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For most of the twentieth century, considered opinion in the United States regarding Palestine has favored the inherent right of Jews to exist in the Holy Land. That Palestinians, as a native population, could claim the same right has been largely ignored. Kathleen Christison's controversial new book shows how the endurance of such assumptions, along with America's singular focus on Israel and general ignorance of the Palestinian point of view, has impeded a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Christison begins with the derogatory images of Arabs purveyed by Western travelers to the Middle East in the nineteenth century, including Markā€¦


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Book cover of Confessions of a Knight Errant: Drifters, Thieves, and Ali Baba's Treasure

Confessions of a Knight Errant by Gretchen McCullough,

Confessions of a Knight Errant is a comedic, picaresque novel in the tradition of Don Quixote with a flamboyant cast of characters.

Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of aā€¦

Book cover of In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post-World War II Era

Randall Fowler Why did I love this book?

While not a book about the Middle East per se, Winklerā€™s In the Name of Terrorism traces the rise of terrorism as a concern in U.S. politics and charts the narratives, frames, metaphors, and rhetoric used by presidents to make sense of terrorism to the American people. Focusing specifically on the evolution of ā€œterrorismā€ as a concept in the leadup to the 9/11 attacks, this book provides vital background for those who wish to understand, as George W. Bush put it, why ā€œtheyā€ hate ā€œus.ā€ A wide-ranging volume that effectively bridges the Cold War and the War on Terror, readers will better appreciate the importance of the presidentā€™s language choices after finishing this captivating book.

By Carol K. Winkler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Name of Terrorism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Traces the shifts in presidential discourse on terrorism since World War II.


Explore my book šŸ˜€

More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East

By Randall Fowler,

Book cover of More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East

What is my book about?

Nowadays, the Middle East can seem a quite complicated place. Between ISIS and Iran, Arabs and Israelis, Kurds and Turks, Yazidis and Druze, not to mention oil, Islam, terrorism, Judaism, and Christianity, the issues and conflicts that divide the region often appear bewildering to the average Americanā€”much less the ever-changing question of what U.S. foreign policy should be in the region.

My book cuts through those issues to directly explain the origins of American intervention in the Middle East during the Cold War. I use the lens of presidential rhetoric to trace the arguments, fears, and actions that drove U.S. policymakers to get involved in this important region in the first place. I show that many of the anxieties commentators currently voice about the Arab Muslim world are rather similar to the worries felt by Eisenhower and his team. My book demonstrates how major events like the Suez Crisis, Eisenhower Doctrine, coup in Iran, and the 1958 marine landing in Lebanon are still quite relevant to us today. 

Book cover of American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters
Book cover of America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East
Book cover of The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East

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