{"id":383,"date":"2008-09-07T00:01:47","date_gmt":"2008-09-07T04:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/?p=383"},"modified":"2008-09-18T00:05:14","modified_gmt":"2008-09-18T04:05:14","slug":"east_near_middle_far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/09\/east_near_middle_far\/","title":{"rendered":"East: Near, Middle, Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

From MESH Admin<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"This wire service article<\/a> from the New York Times<\/em> of April 27, 1952 is evidence of how the National Geographic Society once unsuccessfully tried to define the Near, Middle, and Far Easts “in terms of logical geographical divisions.” It is amusing now to read the rationale for the Society’s insistence on centering the Middle East in… India. (Read the article for details.)<\/p>\n

The motive was a desire to save the term Near East<\/em> from oblivion. Middle East<\/em>, which the British had embraced after the First World War, had pushed Near East<\/em> aside in discussions of contemporary politics. In 1946, the term Middle East struck a deep root in America, with the founding of the Middle East Institute in Washington. The new institute began to publish the Middle East Journal<\/em> the following year. Likewise, the New York Times<\/em> regularly referred to the region as the Middle East. This caused some consternation in official circles, since Near East remained the preferred term of the U.S. State Department. (Even today, the region comes under the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.) The article does indeed suggest that the National Geographic Society was following the State Department’s lead.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the “logical” division proposed by the Society, which would have pushed the Middle East thousands of miles eastwards, failed to reverse the tide of popular usage. In August 1958, the State Department finally gave up, as announced by the New York Times<\/em> in an article<\/a> headlined “‘Near East’ is Mideast, Washington Explains.” The National Geographic Society took a bit longer. Its January 1959 map<\/a> of the region skirted any admission of defeat, by employing this evasive title: “Lands of the Eastern Mediterranean (Called the Near East or the Middle East).” But ultimately the Society too gave up the fight. (Follow the evolution of its maps of the region here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And so we are not called NESH.<\/p>\n

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From MESH Admin This wire service article from the New York Times of April 27, 1952 is evidence of how the National Geographic Society once unsuccessfully tried to define the Near, Middle, and Far Easts “in terms of logical geographical divisions.” It is amusing now to read the rationale for the Society’s insistence on centering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051,2240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-martin-kramer","category-terminology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}