I haven't read it myself but Paul Greenberg (The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) speaks very highly of it so I'll take recommend it on faith.
Quote:Two of the books on the table are by Bernard Lewis, the best guide available to Arabdom. Especially for Arabs. They read him for the same reason Americans read de Tocqueville. To see ourselves as others see us.
I have only one chapter to go in Professor Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam, and will hate to finish it. It will mean leaving his company. To read Bernard Lewis is like eating baklava: rich, delicious, leaving one not sated but wanting to taste just another morsel. To mention a few of his offhand observations:
• "In current American usage, the phrase ‘that’s history’ is commonly used to dismiss something as unimportant, of no relevance to current concerns, and despite an immense investment in the teaching and writing of history, the general level of historical knowledge in American society is abysmally low. The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but unlike some others, they are keenly aware of it. "
• "In the Western world, the basic unit of human organization is the nation, in American but not European usage virtually synonymous with country. This is then subdivided in various ways, one of which is religion. The Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations. ’ ’
• In the Arab world, Professor Lewis notes, "References to early, even to ancient history are commonplace in public discourse. In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, for instance, both sides waged massive propaganda campaigns that frequently evoked events and personalities dating back as far as the seventh century… . It is hard to imagine purveyors of mass propaganda in the West making their points by allusions dating from the same period, to the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy in England or the Carolingian monarchs in France."
I’m also re-reading Professor Lewis’ What Went Wrong — a history of the Arab world that’s more relevant than ever. He’s the kind of historian/author/teacher/gentleman whom you want to re-visit.
(Paul Greenberg in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 17, 2003)