Publication

This paper focuses on Orientalist thought in the US. It examines the representations of the Middle East at US World's Fairs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author analyzes why the US displayed a strong interest in the Middle East well before its economic and political interests in the region took shape after World War II. He further explores the extent to which the Orientalist paradigm can help explain the US' relationship with the Middle East as well as alternative paradigms that need to be developed to understand aspects Orientalism fails to explain.