Field notes : a history of Middle East studies in the United States /
Zachary Lockman.
- 1 online resource
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"We shall have to understand it" -- "The regional knowledge now required" -- Launching a new field -- Princeton, the ACLS and postwar Near Eastern studies -- A committee for the Near and Middle East -- Field-building in boom times -- "A need for more regular contact" -- "The lower parts of Max Weber."
Field Notes reconstructs the origins and trajectory of area studies in the United States, focusing on Middle East studies from the 1920s to the 1980s. Drawing on extensive archival research, Zachary Lockman shows how the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations played key roles in conceiving, funding, and launching postwar area studies, expecting them to yield a new kind of interdisciplinary knowledge that would advance the social sciences while benefiting government agencies and the American people. Lockman argues, however, that these new academic fields were not simply a product of the Cold War or an instrument of the American national security state, but had roots in shifts in the humanities and the social sciences over the interwar years, as well as in World War II sites and practices. This book explores the decision-making processes and visions of knowledge production at the foundations, the Social Science Research Council, and others charged with guiding the intellectual and institutional development of Middle East studies. Ultimately, Field Notes uncovers how area studies as an academic field was actually built - a process replete with contention, anxiety, dead ends, and consequences both unanticipated and unintended.
9780804799584 080479958X
1900-1999
Area studies--History--United States--20th century. HISTORY--General.--Middle East Area studies. Education.
Middle East--Study and teaching--History--United States--20th century. Middle East. United States.