Turlock speaker to give historical perspective of U.S.-Iran relations

The politics and economic forces driving conflict between the United States and the Middle East, with an emphasis on Iran, will be explored at the Northern California regional conference of Phi Alpha Theta on Saturday.

“Beyond the Clash of Civilizations” will be the keynote topic of Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, assistant professor of U.S., Middle East and world history at California State University, Stanislaus. The speech, open to the public, will be at 1 p.m. at the university’s event center, a part of the student union complex.

Wolfe-Hunnicutt said he will focus his remarks on the history of U.S. relations with Iran, in part to offer some historical context to the recent diplomatic breakthrough on Iranian nuclear activity.

The talk’s title comes from the seminal 1991 work by Samuel Huntington called “Clash of Civilizations,” which said that the Cold War heralded the end of nation-state conflicts and that in the 21st century cultural and religious identities would drive conflict in world affairs. Huntington’s thesis formed the backbone of media and government analysis in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

But Wolfe-Hunnicutt argues that oversimplifies and misrepresents the history of U.S. relations with the Middle East. His review of U.S. engagements in the Middle East since the end of World War I looks at the political and economic origins of contemporary violence in the region.

The speaker’s area of research is the history of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. He is working on a book tentatively titled “Oil and the Limits of American Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company, 1958-1975.” Wolfe-Hunnicutt earned a doctorate in history from Stanford University.

The event is free. Campus parking is free on weekends.

This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Turlock speaker to give historical perspective of U.S.-Iran relations."