Princeton’s 1947 Near East conference united oil firms, state, and foundations

Evidence

One of the first universities to set up a Near East studies program was Princeton University. The Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations provided resources for this program, and the State Department expressed enthusiastic support. In 1947, Princeton organized a conference titled “The Arab and Moslem World: Studies and Problems.” In attendance were prominent Orientalists like the Oxford scholar H. A. R. Gibb and the Austrian Gustave von Grunebaum. Attendees included members from the oil company ARAMCO, the State Department, and representatives from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 241

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• CANDY: A fun fact for a history cocktail hour: the founding conference of US Middle East studies included representatives from an oil company.

Related

• Princeton’s foundational Middle East program convened oil, state, philanthropy (similarity 0.97)
• Professional Middle East studies scholarship endorsed rather than challenged crude anti-Arab ideas (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Princeton’s foundational Middle East program convened oil, state, philanthropy #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 241