This thesis contemplates the sustainability if the United States' heavy economic dependence on oil, which procures its global hegemony, through analyzing Abdul Rahman Munif's "Cities of Salt" and Omar El Akkad's "American War" sequentially. Sustainability is used to assess U.S. militance as well as the environmental and economic consequences of American oil dependence. Munif's "Cities of Salt' accounts the conflation of capitalism and militance in petrostates through the introduction of American oil companies in Saudi Arabia during the twentieth century. The oil-based partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia solidified American presence in the Middle East and enabled the U.S. to assert its oil agenda. Analyzing Omar El Akkad's "American War" as an inversion of the current world order permits the censure of American oil policy and alludes to the decline of American hegemony amid the rise of alternative energy.
This thesis takes up the issue of the traditional English curriculum in high school English classes and emphasizes the importance of incorporating culturally relevant pedagogy into English classes.