Sacred interests: the United States and the Islamic world, 1821-1921

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, US diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events.

Karine V. Walther excavates the history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam shaped US foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I.