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Crusade and Jihad is the first book to encompass, in one volume, the entire history of the catastrophic encounter between the Global North-China, Russia, Europe, Britain, and America-and Muslim societies from Central Asia to West Africa. William R. Polk draws on more than half a century of experience as a historian, policy planner, diplomat, peace negotiator, and businessman to explain the deep hostilities between the Muslim world and the Global North and show how they grew over the centuries. Polk shows how Islam arose and spread across North Africa into Europe, climaxed in the vibrant and sophisticated caliphate of al-Andalus in medieval Spain, and was the bright light in a European Dark Age. Simultaneously, Islam spread from the Middle East into Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. But following the Mongol invasions, Islamic civilization entered a decline while Europe began its overseas expansion. Portuguese buccaneers dominated the Indian Ocean; the Dutch and the English established powerful corporations that turned India and Indonesia into colonies; Russian armies pushed down the Volga into Central Asia, destroying its city-states; and the Chinese Qing dynasty slaughtered an entire Central Asian people. Britain crushed local industry and drained off wealth throughout its vast colonies. Defeated at every turn, Muslims tried adopting Western dress, organizing Westernstyle armies, and embracing Western ideas. None of these efforts stopped the conquests. For Europe and Russia, the nineteenth century was an age of colonial expansion, but for the Muslim world it was an age of brutal and humiliating defeat. Millions were driven from their homes, starved, or killed, and their culture and religion came under a century-long assault. In the twentieth century, brutalized and and disorganized native societies, even after winning independence, fell victim to "post-imperial malaise," typified by native tyrannies, corruption, and massive poverty. The result was a furious blowback. A sobering, scrupulous, and frank account of imperialism, colonialism, insurgency, and terrorism, Crusade and Jihad is history for anyone who wishes to understand the civilizational conflicts of today's world

The Elusive Peace, first published in 1979, highlights the crucial developments in the Middle East during the twentieth century: the coming of nationalism, the struggle for independence, the effects of the Cold War and the four 'hot wars' in the Middle East. The numerous attempts to solve the conflicts, and the ultimate failure of such attempts, are discussed with particular reference to the war in Lebanon, and its relation to larger conflicts. As an American emissary during the Kennedy, Johnston and Nixon years, William Polk is unique in his ability to assess the key personalities.

How important are foreign affairs in the grand scheme of civilization? Do defenses against the invasion of strangers influence the evolution of culture? Drawing on decades of experience in government as well as in the academy, William R. Polk offers a uniquely informed, comprehensive view of foreign relations. Bridging academic disciplines he treats foreign affairs as they occur in the real world. Instead of separating diplomacy, intelligence and espionage, defense and warfare, trade and aid, intervention and law from one another, he shows how they interact and together form a whole pattern wi

Butler, W. Jack: American business and the Arab world

Der Beitrag betrachtet die Sicherheits- und Außenpolitik der USA im Kontext der Volksaufstände in Vietnam und Irak unter Berücksichtung der Amerikanischen Revolution im 18. Jahrhundert. So wird im ersten Schritt zunächst skizziert, was in Volksaufständen geschieht. Der zweite Schritt beleuchtet die drei maßgeblichen Komponenten der Guerillakriegführung in Vietnam von 1957 bis 1974: Politik, Verwaltung und bewaffneter Kampf. Der dritte Schritt beschreibt den Verlauf der Amerikanischen Revolution von 1760 bis 1775, in der sich amerikanische Siedler gegen die britische Armee erhoben. Auf dieser Grundlage wendet sich der Autor sodann resümierend drei Aspekten zu: (1) der Frage, wie Aufstände generell beginnen und wie sie sich ausbreiten, (2) dem Thema counterinsurgency, also der Aufstandsbekämpfung und ihrem Scheitern, sowie (3) der Art und Weise, wie Aufstände enden. Vor diesem Hintergrund beschreibt der Autor abschließend die Situation in Irak und plädiert dabei für einen geordneten Rückzug der USA in fünf Schritten: (1) Austausch der amerikanischen Streitkräfte gegen eine multinationale Stabilisierungstruppe, (2) Schaffung einer einsatzfähigen irakischen Polizei, (3) keine Förderung des Aufbaus einer irakischen Armee, (4) den tatsächlichen Rückzug deutlich machen sowie (5) Unterstützung der Zivilgesellschaft und seiner Entwicklung. (ICG)

Scholars who are committed to single disciplines occasionally appear to lose sight of the fact that these disciplines are conventions, designed to enable the scholar to neglect, while clearly signifying his neglect, many aspects of life in order to concentrate on a few. We historians tend, I believe, to give ourselves license to warn our readers rather less explicitly of our neglect than do economists, political scientists, sociologists, or anthropologists. Yet, we have trained ourselves to pay particular attention to certain facets of the human experience. Some of us compromise with the positions of those we occasionally think of as our more exacting colleagues in the social sciences by adding to the term 'historian' various adjectives– 'social', 'economic', 'cultural', or 'political'.