Sacred Interests

An excellent, detailed and well-constructed introduction to an important subject."" - Times Literary Supplement

""A powerful book about the ways in which many nineteenth-century Americans sought to convert and reform, colonize and control Muslims throughout the world."" - Diplomatic History

""A well-documented investigation of relations between the United States and the Islamic world during the nineteenth century."" - Journal of American Culture

""An important study that deserves to be widely read. . . . Walther has uncovered the ideological and rhetorical foundations of the recrudescent Islamophobia today."" - American Historical Review

""Its transnational breadth, refined scope, and authorial care make Sacred Interests essential reading for scholars and students of race, religion, and empire."" - Journal of American History

""[A] superb book. . . . Provides a deeper understanding of U.S. approaches to the Islamic world. Highly recommended."" - Choice

""Scholars are now equipped with a fuller picture of America's relationship with the broader Islamic world."" - Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamic World

""Karine Walther provides us with a study of a topic that is at once historically resonant and urgent in its contemporary applicability."" - H-Net

""Walther's excellent new study is the first overview of American relations with the Islamic World in the years between the Barbary Wars and world War II."" - Review of Middle East Studies

""Illuminates a series of transnational engagements which helped shape U.S. foreign policy . . . and which reveal the roots of a persistent racialization of Islam in America today."" - Religion in American History