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A broad background that could help you understand why the Middle East and the United States are increasingly at odds with each other. We reach back into the Middle Eastern past--the rise of Islam, the Caliphate, the coming of the Turks, the European expansion, the discovery if oil--and use these developments to explain the unsettled political, social, economic, and religious landscape of the region today. Thus we will set ourselves to explain why Turkey is a secular republic whereas Iran is an Islamic one, why so many Arab governments confront threats from violent religious radicals, and what role oil plays in all this.