Dr. Walther Shares New Book Research at a CIRS Dialogue Series

At a recent Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) Dialogue Series Lecture, Professor of History, Dr. Karine Walther, gave a public talk titled: “Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955.”

In her presentation, which was attended by an audience of students, faculty, academics from local institutions, and members of the diplomatic community, among others, Dr. Walther shared some of her ongoing research tracing the social, political, and economic impact of American medical missionaries working in the Arabian Gulf a century ago, which she will soon be publishing as part of a new book on the region.

Through a detailed historical analysis, Dr. Walther demonstrated how the educational and medical programs initiated by American missionaries would later be adopted by oil executives at the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in an effort to advance their own commercial interests in Saudi Arabia.

“American missionaries had been in the Arabian Gulf since 1889 and by the time Americans arrived seeking to sign oil concessions, missionaries had forged close relationships with Gulf rulers, including the founder of Saudi Arabia himself, Ibn Saud,” she said. “American oil developers benefited directly from the missionaries’ network of contacts, and later, relied on their cooperation in advancing their strategic interests in the area.”

Using the propaganda literature that ARAMCO commissioned in 1955 to deflect accusations of economic imperialism in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Walther demonstrated how the company’s public relations efforts bypassed this critical history in their public relations efforts.

She also highlighted the emergence of strong cooperation between American missionaries, ARAMCO, the American government, and a new interest in Middle Eastern Studies programs that were developed to promote and protect  “key economic interests” of the Americans and the British. Sharing published quotes from a conference celebrating the launch of the Near East Studies Department Princeton in 1947, Dr. Walther concluded that “these sources … reveal the longer historical and ideological ties that linked American religious, commercial and political interests in the area.”

Dr. Karine Walther is the 2019-2020 CIRS GU-Q Faculty Fellow, an annual fellowship awarded to a member of the GU-Q faculty to support original research for publication in leading journals or university presses. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, a Maîtrise and Licence in sociology from the University of Paris VIII and a BA from the University of Texas, Austin. Her second book: “Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955,” is forthcoming with University of North Carolina (UNC) Press in 2020. Her first book, “Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921” was published by UNC Press in 2015.