Trading Wheat for Books in the Cold War

Public Law 480 (Food for Peace) and Its Connection to Middle East Studies

Bibliographic Data

ID12980691
AuthorsMichael Degerald (Film Independent, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue3
Pages245-264
Publication date2021-07-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMiddle East Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19436149.2021.1957301
OpenAlexW3190830257
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

The libraries at top private and public research universities in the United States hold some of the most comprehensive collections in the world for studying other regions and their modern histories. Yet how this came to be has been largely overlooked. This article unearths the history of the Public Law 480 Program, also known as Food For Peace or PL-480, and how it came to support the large-scale acquisition of Arabic books through a center opened for this purpose in Cairo, Egypt. The article explores the changes in US food exports, specifically wheat, and links these changes to PL-480, US foreign policy, and finally Arabic book acquisitions for US research libraries. By drawing on a variety of publicly available primary sources, as well as a series of interviews with the current and former directors of the Cairo acquisitions center, this article lays out the history of this unorthodox program and its outsized impact on area studies programs in the United States, with a specific focus on Middle East Studies

Arabic · Cold war · Middle East · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Islamic Studies and History · Law

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