David Fromkin, Professor and Author on Mideast, Dies at 84
Professor Fromkin quoted an American missionary’s cautionary message to Gertrude Bell, the British Oriental secretary: "You are flying in the face of four millenniums of history if you try to draw a line around Iraq
and call it a country!" In 1994 Professor Fromkin, already an accomplished author, joined Boston University, where he was director of the Center for International Relations (now part of the Pardee School of Global Studies) and taught international relations, history and law.
New York Times wrote that A Middle Easterner need not be especially cynical, considering the region’s oil and strategic situation, to suspect
that America is pursuing its national interests rather than disinterestedly promoting democracy and the welfare of western Asia,
To critics who thought that Professor Fromkin did not fully appreciate vital American interests of the moment, William R. Everdell, a fellow author, offered a longer view: "Like many in political science — including
Machiavelli himself among its long-ago founders — he is an unapologetic practitioner of his field’s parent discipline, history." Professor Fromkin acknowledged, though, that history can be subjective.
Kosovo wrote that As a general rule, the United States should go to war only to defend its vital interests,
