Background
Parker was the son of Colonel Roscoe Parker, a United States. Army officer (Cavalry), and grew up in United States. Army posts across the southwest with a stint in Vermont and another in Kansas.
(Unlike Baghdad and Damascus, Cairo was spared the devasta...)
Unlike Baghdad and Damascus, Cairo was spared the devastation of the Mongol invasions, and many of its fine medieval structures are still standing - mosques, madrasas, mausoleums, caravanserais, fortifications, aqueducts, private houses, Quranic schools. It is an unequaled treasure-house of Islamic architecture - a treasure-house that most visitors pass by in ignorance. This revised and updated edition of an always popular book describes Cairo's rich architectural heritage and medieval urban development, and guides the visitor around over two hundred of the city's most interesting Islamic monuments.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9774240367/?tag=2022091-20
( Why do international crises seem to occur so often in t...)
Why do international crises seem to occur so often in the Middle East? Former U.S. diplomat Richard B. Parker presents three detailed studies of policy failures that he believes were precipitated by miscalculations on the part of diplomats and of government and military leaders in one or more Middle Eastern countries, the United States, and the former USSR. They are the Soviet-Egyptian miscalculation leading to the June 1967 war between Israel and the Arab states, the U.S.-Israeli miscalculation leading to Soviet military intervention in Egypt in 1970, and the U.S.-Israeli miscalculation leading to the disastrous Lebanese-Israeli peace agreement of May 17, 1983. Parker’s many-sided, often gripping account of the way in which these crises unfolded illustrates how the same events can be viewed very differently by the observers and actors involved, and how political decisions can precipitate reactions that are often very different from those anticipated. Although the book highlights the unavoidably uncertain and contingent element in all diplomatic activity, it also shows that careful attention to history, to past performance, and to prevailing mindsets in the countries involved can be invaluable aids in diplomatic crisis management. The many sources assembled and the careful weighing of their accuracy and reliability, along with the combined perspective of the practitioner and the scholar, make this book an important resource for diplomats, policymakers, and students of diplomacy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0253207819/?tag=2022091-20
(This book tells the story of America's first hostage cris...)
This book tells the story of America's first hostage crisis, which began in 1785 with the capture of two American ships off the coast of Portugal, and provides the intriguing details of the diplomacy mobilized to address the crisis. The incident constituted America's first challenge from the Muslim world and led to the creation of the U.S. Navy and to an American naval presence in the Mediterranean, which has continued intermittently to the present. The Algerine corsairs (also known as the Barbary pirates), who seized the American seamen, played by the strange set of rules that operated 200 years ago along the Barbary Coast. Interested in booty and ransom money, they routinely extorted "tribute" from merchant ships that were not protected by treaty or navies. With no navy of its own and no longer covered by British treaties after the Revolutionary War, the United States eventually had to buy its way to peace with the Barbary powers. By the time the episode was resolved in 1796, American seamen had spent eleven years as prisoners in Algiers and the U.S. had paid close to a million dollars in cash and kind to ransom 103 surviving captives from 13 ships. However, from 1801 to 1805, the U.S. was again at war with Tripoli over the tribute demanded--the struggle celebrated in the opening lines of the Marine Corps Hymn. Although the popular slogan at the time was "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute," the U.S. eventually paid $60,000 for a treaty with Tripoli. Uncle Sam in Barbary is based on dispatches, personal papers, and the official communications of those involved, including unpublished Italian and Tunisian documents. Richard Parker puts flesh on the bare bones of the standard narrative of this crisis, bringing to life the fate and identity of the American captives as well as the leaders in Algiers and clarifying for the first time the unhelpful roles played by the British and French. This history offers insights for today about the roles of diplomacy and military force in international relations. A major episode in the foreign affairs of the early Republic, the events involved a roll call of American founding fathers--including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, James Monroe, and Alexander Hamilton.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813033446/?tag=2022091-20
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagined Muslim colonies in North Africa to be realms of savage violence, lurid sexuality, and primitive madness. Colonial Madness traces the genealogy and development of this idea from the beginnings of colonial expansion to the present, revealing the ways in which psychiatry has been at once a weapon in the arsenal of colonial racism, an innovative branch of medical science, and a mechanism for negotiating the meaning of difference for republican citizenship. Drawing from extensive archival research and fieldwork in France and North Africa, Richard Keller offers much more than a history of colonial psychology. Colonial Madness explores the notion of what French thinkers saw as an inherent mental, intellectual, and behavioral rift marked by the Mediterranean, as well as the idea of the colonies as an experimental space freed from the limitations of metropolitan society and reason. These ideas have modern relevance, Keller argues, reflected in French thought about race and debates over immigration and France’s postcolonial legacy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226429733/?tag=2022091-20
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagined Muslim colonies in North Africa to be realms of savage violence, lurid sexuality, and primitive madness. Colonial Madness traces the genealogy and development of this idea from the beginnings of colonial expansion to the present, revealing the ways in which psychiatry has been at once a weapon in the arsenal of colonial racism, an innovative branch of medical science, and a mechanism for negotiating the meaning of difference for republican citizenship. Drawing from extensive archival research and fieldwork in France and North Africa, Richard Keller offers much more than a history of colonial psychology. Colonial Madness explores the notion of what French thinkers saw as an inherent mental, intellectual, and behavioral rift marked by the Mediterranean, as well as the idea of the colonies as an experimental space freed from the limitations of metropolitan society and reason. These ideas have modern relevance, Keller argues, reflected in French thought about race and debates over immigration and France’s postcolonial legacy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226429733/?tag=2022091-20
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagined Muslim colonies in North Africa to be realms of savage violence, lurid sexuality, and primitive madness. Colonial Madness traces the genealogy and development of this idea from the beginnings of colonial expansion to the present, revealing the ways in which psychiatry has been at once a weapon in the arsenal of colonial racism, an innovative branch of medical science, and a mechanism for negotiating the meaning of difference for republican citizenship. Drawing from extensive archival research and fieldwork in France and North Africa, Richard Keller offers much more than a history of colonial psychology. Colonial Madness explores the notion of what French thinkers saw as an inherent mental, intellectual, and behavioral rift marked by the Mediterranean, as well as the idea of the colonies as an experimental space freed from the limitations of metropolitan society and reason. These ideas have modern relevance, Keller argues, reflected in French thought about race and debates over immigration and France’s postcolonial legacy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226429733/?tag=2022091-20
( Every one of the 887 species of birds found in Britain ...)
Every one of the 887 species of birds found in Britain and Europe is described and illustrated - including all rarities and introduced species. The book provides the information needed to identify every species - whatever its age or sex - and special pages highlight groups of birds that are difficult to identify.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0002198940/?tag=2022091-20
(Northeast Africa has one of the richest histories in the ...)
Northeast Africa has one of the richest histories in the world, and yet also one of the most violent. Richard Reid offers an historical analysis of violent conflict in northeast Africa through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, incorporating the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands and their escarpment and lowland peripheries, stretching between the modern Eritrean Red Sea coast and the southern and eastern borderlands of present day Ethiopia. Sudanese and Somali frontiers are also examined insofar as they can be related to ethnic, political, and religious conflict, and the violent state- and empire-building processes which have defined the region since c.1800. Reid argues that this modern warfare is not solely the product of modern political 'failure', but rather has its roots in a network of frontier zones which are both violent and creative. Such borderlands have given rise to markedly militarised political cultures which are rooted in the violence of the nineteenth century, and which in recent decades are manifest in authoritarian systems of government. Reid thus traces the history of Amhara and Tigrayan imperialisms to the nationalist and ethnic revolutions which represented the march of volatile borderlands on the hegemonic centre. He suggests a new interpretation of Ethiopian and Eritrean history, arguing that the key to understanding the region's turbulent present lies in an appreciation of the role of the armed, and politically fertile, frontier in its deeper past.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199211884/?tag=2022091-20
Parker was the son of Colonel Roscoe Parker, a United States. Army officer (Cavalry), and grew up in United States. Army posts across the southwest with a stint in Vermont and another in Kansas.
Bachelor of Science, Kansas State University, 1947. Master of Science, Kansas State University, 1948. Postgraduate, Princeton University, 1965.
Parker served as Ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon and Morocco. He was the brother of David Stuart Parker. After college, Parker served as an infantry officer with the 106th Infantry Division (first platoon of the Anti-Tank Company of the 422nd Infantry Regiment) during World World War II, where he was captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge and briefly imprisoned.
After the war, he returned to Kansas State, where he earned a master"s degree, before joining the United States. Foreign Service in 1949.
Captured at the same time as Parker, was Donald Prell, who commanded the second platoon of the Anti-Tank Company. Parker served as deputy chief of mission in Rabat, Morocco from 1970 to 1974.
He was ambassador to Algeria from 1975 to 1977, to Lebanon in 1977, and finally to Morocco from 1978 to 1979. He retired from the United States. Foreign Service in 1981 and became the editor of The Middle East Journal.
In addition to his diplomatic career, Parker taught at the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, and Lawrence University.
He also served as the first president of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training from 1986 to 1989. In 1982, Parker participated in a study group held at the Council on Foreign Relations where he discussed current problems in North Africa. After these meetings Parker spent two years compiling and writing North Africa: Regional Tensions and Strategic Concerns.
His book was published in relation with and through the Council on Foreign Relations.
Ambassador Parker"s papers are held at Georgetown University, in Washington, District of Columbia Some of Richard Bordeaux Parker"s photographs are held at the Freer Gallery and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives in Washington, District of Columbia The collection includes black and white negatives of Islamic architecture throughout Algeria, Cairo, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, and Spain. Renaissance Manitoba
Washington Post
Middle East Institute.
(Unlike Baghdad and Damascus, Cairo was spared the devasta...)
(This book tells the story of America's first hostage cris...)
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
( Nineteenth-century French writers and travelers imagine...)
( Every one of the 887 species of birds found in Britain ...)
(Northeast Africa has one of the richest histories in the ...)
( Why do international crises seem to occur so often in t...)
Author: Guide to Islamic Monuments in Cairo, 1974, Guide to Islamic Monuments in Morocco, 1981, North Africa, 1984, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, 1993 (Choice award 1994), Uncle Sam in Barbary, A Diplomatic History, 2004 (C. Douglas Dillon award). Editor: Six-Day War: A Retrospective, 1996, The October War: A Retrospective, 2001.
Member Middle East Institute, Council Foreign Relations, American Academy Diplomacy, Association for Diplomatic Studies, Cosmos Club, Delta Tau Delta.
Married Jeanne Jaccard, June 23, 1944. Children: Alison, Jeffrey, Jill, Richard.