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American Encounters with Arabs
The Soft Power of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East
 Series: Praeger Security International
 William A. Rugh

0-275-98817-1/978-0-275-98817-3

Description
Explores the attitudes held by typical Arabs toward America and Americans, the causes of those attitudes, and the ways in which U.S. government officials have conducted public diplomacy programs to try to deal with misunderstandings and misconceptions about U.S. policy, society, and culture.

Reviews:
-Rugh, a retired career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to countries in the Middle East, explains key issues surrounding the US government's public diplomacy programs in the region, chronicling public diplomacy efforts from the Eisenhower presidency to the current administration. He provides a behind-the- scenes look at how public affairs officers do their jobs and how they have met the challenges of the past and the post-September 11th era. —Reference & Research Book News
-The book is a badly needed account of how the US has managed, and mismanaged, its public diplomacy with the Middle East, especially the Arab world. Rugh, a 31-year career officer with the US Information Agency (USIA), does an excellent job of illustrating the relationship between the tools of public diplomacy and the problems of interfacing with foreign audiences. The author focuses clearly on middle range theory with an emphasis on the policy issues. The presentation is organized along historical lines, with an initial general focus on the 1940s-50s and subsequent chapters devoted to each presidential era, concluding in mid-2005. The 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath exacerbated problems of public diplomacy, which began after USIA was dismantled in 1999 and its functions given over to the State Department. Despite this trend, the book cites several excellent personal efforts for public affairs officers, calls for more grounded efforts, and reminds the reader that public diplomacy is a complex process that depends not only on Washington officials but also on public diplomacy professionals who live abroad . . . managing a variety of programs. Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduates through practitioners. —Choice
About the Author
WILLIAM A. RUGH was a career Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Information Agency (1964-1995). He served as U.S. ambassador to Yemen and to the United Arab Emirates. He is the author of Arab Mass Media (Praeger, 2004) and the editor of Engaging the Arab and Islamic Worlds through Public Diplomacy (Public Diplomacy Council, 2004). He is a Trustee of the American University in Cairo, a Board Member and past President of AMIDEAST, an Associate of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, an Adjunct Scholar of the Middle East Institute, and an Executive Committee member of the Public Diplomacy Council.
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0-275-98817-1 978-0-275-98817-3 American Encounters with Arabs $51.95    
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