Documentary on the modern history of USA-Arab relations

[Alfred001]

I'm quite young and was just a kid when 9.11. happened and my knowledge of the context of the attack and the subsequent military actions is quite sketchy. I know the context goes back at least to the 50s. Is there a documentary that covers these subjects (or multiple documentaries)?

[proximity1]

For documentary films, try here:

 

http://icarusfilms.c...s/middle_e.html

 

 

 

Even better, for your reading, I recommend one of France's foremost contemporary experts on the middle east--for his wide and long views of the history and politics:

 

see, (in English translations from original french)

 

A history of the Middle East : from antiquity to the present day / Georges Corm ; translated by Hala Khawam / http://lccn.loc.gov/2010549017

 

Fragmentation of the Middle East : the last thirty years ; Georges G. Corm ; translated by Selina Cohen, Raj Isar, and Margaret Owen / http://lccn.loc.gov/89115618

 

and, finally, this one by Gilles Kepel, another renowned middle east observer in France, originally titled Fitna , in the french edition, it's available in an english translation,

 

The War for Muslim Minds , : Islam and the West ; translated by Pascale Ghazaleh. http://lccn.loc.gov/2004050474

 

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I suggest that you keep in mind that, like so many topics, this one, in particular, concerns issues of intense controversy. Every author, film-maker, without exception, will bring a point of view to the subject. When some criticize a work because its author "has an agenda," remember that on this, everyone has an agenda, a set of beliefs which are the context and back-drop of his or her works. The point is not to avoid so-called "biased" works, but, rather to sample numerous authors and prize most those who set out plainly their "agendas," their starting assumptions, their "biases.

 

You have mine, here, in the recommendations I present above. The authors are ones who are knowledgeable, speak, read and write in Arabic or other Middle Easten languages, (usually in addition to English and French), and who have not only long experience in the countries concerned, but also a capacity to present points of view which are additions to or alternatives to the views commonly presented as the facts of the matter by Western-run or owned mass-media.

 

Have a good trip!

Edited November 6, 2012 by proximity1