American Arabesque: Arabs and Islam in the Nineteenth Century Imaginary

Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series
American Arabesque examines representations of Arabs, Islam and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them
today.

Moving from the period of America's engagement in the
Barbary Wars through the H...