Michael Oren

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Michael B. Oren (born in 1955) is an American-Israeli scholar, historian, author, and IDF military officer best known for his best-selling and highly acclaimed books on Middle Eastern history. He was recently appointed Visiting Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born an American citizen, he has published books, articles and essays on the subject of Middle Eastern history, and is the author of the best-selling Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, which was listed as a New York Times bestseller and won the National Jewish Book Award and the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year Award. He is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and a contributing editor to the The New Republic and the Shalem Center's quarterly journal, Azure. He currently lives in Jerusalem.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Praise 3 Criticism 4 Bibliography 4.1 Articles 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Born in New Jersey, U.S., Michael Oren received B.A. (1977) and M.I.A. (School of International Affairs, 1978) at Columbia University and M.A. and Ph.D. (History of the Middle East) at Princeton University. He was a visiting professor at Harvard University and Yale University before coming to Georgetown University as a Visiting Professor in Fall 2008.

Oren immigrated to Israel in 1979 and served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces, seeing combat in the 1982 Lebanon War. He was an advisor to Yitzhak Rabin and served as the Israeli liaison officer to the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War. He served as a Major in the IDF Reserve during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Oren has also ventured into fiction. His book Reunion was published in 2004. According to Publishers Weekly, it is about, "Five decades after an unforgettable winter at Saint-Vith in Belgium's Ardennes Forest, the surviving members of the 133rd Infantry Battalion receive invitations out of the blue to an on-site reunion. None of the men, despite age and its array of related obstacles, believes that it's an offer he can refuse. And in every case, the invitation opens a Pandora's box of guilty memories and recriminations. Oren captures the rhythms of these melancholy reveries with nicely observed portraits of lives nearing completion." [1]

His book, Power, Faith and Fantasy: The United States in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, a history of American involvement in the Middle East, is published by Norton and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Power, Faith and Fantasy earned positive reviews from Newsweek, The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Willamette Week. [2] [3] [4] [5][6]

[edit] Praise

The New York Times Book Review wrote positively of Six Days of War,[7] as did the Washington Post which calls it "not only the best book so far written on the Six Day War, it is likely to remain the best."[8] Other positive reviews have been published by the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic, Newsweek International, [9] The Economist, and by noted historians John Keegan and Benny Morris.

[edit] Criticism

• Norman Finkelstein wrote a highly critical review of Six Days of War,^[1]
• A recent paper by Roland Popp, of the Cologne School of Journalism, is also critical.^[2]

[edit] Bibliography

• Six Days of War (2002) ISBN 0-19-515174-7 (Reviews by F. Smitha, and by D. Pipes (New York Post, June 4, 2002))
• Reunion (2004) ISBN-10: 0452285143
• Power, Faith, and Fantasy: The United States in the Middle East, 1776 to 2006 (2007) ISBN 0393058263

[edit] Articles

• America's many failed attempts at Mideast peace The Boston Globe January 2, 2007
• Necessary Steps for Israel, Confronting State Sponsors of Terror Is the Only Option The Washington Post July 14, 2006
• Apple pie and the Middle East, The U.S. has long tried to steer the Mideast toward Western values. Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2007.
• Making Sense of the Six-Day War May 6, 2002 briefing by Michael Oren at MEForum.
• The Second War of Independence Azure magazine, Winter 2007.
• Jews and the Challenge of Sovereignty Azure magazine, Winter 2006.
• Levi Eshkol, Forgotten Hero Azure magazine, Winter 2003.
• Orde Wingate: Friend Under Fire Azure magazine, Winter 2001.
• The 'USS Liberty': Case Closed Azure magazine, Spring 2000.
• Jimmy Carter Has a Religious Problem with Israel Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2006.
• Stop Terror at Its Source Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2006.
• A Soldier's Story Wall St. Journal, August 23, 2005.
• Arafat Without Tears. The Terrorist Statesman Took Peace Nowhere article at The Washington Post (November 14, 2004. p. B01)
• It's the Middle East, Stupid The Washington Post (March 2, 2008; Page B04)
• "Israel Is Now America's Closest Ally." The Wall Street Journal. 7 May 2008.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The homepage of Michael Oren
• Interview at C-SPAN (August 25, 2002)
• Interview at Unkommon Knowledge (June 23, 2003)
• Interview at USA Today (May 28, 2005)
• Article at The Harvard Crimson
• Feature at The Yale Daily News
• The Shalem Center
• Book World Michael B. Oren, author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present," was online to field questions and comments about his book and his years of research on the topic.