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As a side note to the side note, the "Arabist" tradition in the US State Department has been around since the mid 1800s. Robert Kaplan wrote a great book about
by rdouble 15y ago
As a side note to the side note, the "Arabist" tradition in the US State Department has been around since the mid 1800s. Robert Kaplan wrote a great book about it: http://www.amazon.com/Arabists-American-Robert-D-Kaplan/dp/0028740238 http://www.amazon.com/Arabists-American-Robert-D-Kaplan/dp/0...
(The OP made it sound like elites studying Arabic for their ambassador posts is something new. It just faded in popularity when religious fundamentalists started to rise in influence.)
- idlewords 15y agoArabic programs were tiny pre-2001, and now they are extremely oversubscribed. Curiously enough there are still very few people who make it past third-year level :-)