|
|
 |
- Paperback: 448 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.08 x 9.26 x 6.16
- Publisher: Touchstone Books;
Reprint edition (August 1997)
- ISBN: 0684832801
|
|
|
Book
Description
In a sweeping and vivid survey, renowned historian Bernard Lewis
charts the history of the Middle East over the last 2,000 years,
from the birth of Christianity through the modern era, focusing
on the successive transformations that have shaped it.
Elegantly written,
scholarly yet accessible, The Middle East is the most
comprehensive single volume history of the region ever written
from the world's foremost authority on the Middle East.
To
gain a better understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern
culture and society, which is steeped in tradition, one should
look closely at its history. Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near
Eastern studies at Princeton University, considered one of the
world's foremost authorities on the Middle East, spans 2000
years of this region's history, searching in the past for
answers to questions that will inevitably arise in the future.
Drawing on material from a multitude
of sources, including the work of archaeologists and scholars,
Lewis chronologically traces the political, economical, social,
and cultural development of the Middle East, from Hellenization
in antiquity to the impact of westernization on Islamic culture.
Meticulously researched, this enlightening narrative explores
the patterns of history that have repeated themselves in the
Middle East.
From the ancient conflicts to the
current geographical and religious disputes between the Arabs
and the Israelis, Lewis examines the ability of this region to
unite and solve its problems and asks if, in the future, these
unresolved conflicts will ultimately lead to the ethnic and
cultural factionalism that tore apart the former Yugoslavia.
In "The Middle East", Bernard Lewis takes the
reader on guided tour of the past 2000 years, charting the
meteoric rise and fall of the Islamic civilization.
Lewis spares no effort in emphasizing the millennium of
Islam's cultural and political dominance beginning with its 7th
century inception. Europe had much to learn from their neighbors
to the East, and indeed they did. The Ottoman advance into
Europe reversed course, as European power expanded technically
and geographically (colonialism).
Lewis provides a number of explanations for the role
reversal, but one seems to stand out above others: hubris. The
Ottomans were so convinced of their cultural superiority that
they were initially unwilling to do what Europe had done in the
past; they felt they had nothing to learn from their adversary.
For example, the use of the printing press was rejected for
several centuries after its invention.
The period of European colonialism in the Middle East,
from the 19th to mid-20th century, becomes a logical conclusion.
Regardless of right or wrong, nature abhors a vacuum. Lewis
shows how the weakened state of the Ottoman Empire made it easy
pickings for the powers of Europe.
Historians like Lewis have been pilloried by those who
feel the role of colonialism has not been given sufficient
attention when analyzing the current state of the Islamic
civilization within the Middle East. As Lewis clearly shows, the
decline of Islamic civilization was rooted in the tragic flaw of
hubris; it began long before Napoleon's adventures in Egypt.
A reader from Arlington, VA USA
|
. |
