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From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East (Hardcover)

by Bernard W. Lewis (Author) "The Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul was begun in 1550 and completed in 1556 ..." (more)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 456 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1st Edition. edition (April 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0195173368
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195173369
  • Product Dimensions: 24 x 16.5 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 848,094 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

David Pryce-Jones, THE SUNDAY TIMES

'The range, the achievement, is immense. He has the true scholar's ambition of pursuing truth and understanding.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Review

'his style is cool and un-emotive, and when he sets us right it is gently done.....such forthrightness in an academic is refreshing.' (George Walden THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'The range, the achievement, is immense. He has the true scholar's ambition of pursuing truth and understanding.' (David Pryce-Jones THE SUNDAY TIMES )

'Professor Lewis's academic credentials are impeccable...... the collection of essays, articles, reviews, lectures and contributions to encyclopaedias gives a glimpse of his towering scholarship.' (Michael Binyon THE TIMES )

'Lewis has always combined an immense scope with a flair for the little detail.' (James Buchan THE SPECTATOR )

'Lewis is a historian who has thought deeply about what he is doing, and he shows how a historical perspective is not only useful for understanding the present clash of civilisations, it is essential..... The Middle East was, and is, the great meeting place of cultures, and Lewis excels in illustrating these points of contact.' (Daniel Johnson THE DAILY TELEGRAPH )

'the history pieces are nonetheless peppered with insights.' (David Gardner THE FINANCIAL TIMES )

'Our greatest authority on the world of Islam has followed his recent series of best-selling books with this gathering of fifty-one essays from the past fifty-one years. And an enjoyable, as well as an enlightening, collection it turns out to be.' (Hazhir Tiemourian LITERARY REVIEW )

'Lewis is always clear and eloquent.' (Robert Irwin THE INDPENDENT )

'All 51 essays are well-written and well-sourced; some of them are brilliant.' (George Rosie THE SUNDAY HERALD )

'he writes well and is a pleasure to read.' (Oliver Miles THE GUARDIAN ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A rich cornucopia, 27 Aug 2006
By Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East (Paperback)
This is a series of very readable short papers by a world expert on the history of the Middle East, though there is a certain amount of overlap or repetition in them. They are divided into three parts: "Past History" (some 250 pages), "Current History" (about 200 pages), and a part about History as a subject and about Islamic historiography (about 70 pages). One or two of the papers in the first part are perhaps rather specialized for the general reader. Others are summaries of histories that will not provide much new information to the general public (e.g. on the emergence of Modern Israel). Newspaper readers will have formed some idea of the differences between the Sunni and the Shi'ites; the article on the latter gives an exceptionally good account of them. Some chapters may give information even to people who are rather well informed about the Middle East: I, for instance, found the excellent chapter on Pan-Arabism telling me many things I did not know, among them that, although Egyptians speak Arabic, Pan-Arabists did not initially consider Egypt an Arab country, nor that, until the time of Nasser, did the Egyptians themselves describe themselves as Arabs. And how many of even assiduous newspaper readers know anything of the 19th century history of Lebanon, sketched out here in a short article?

The last section has a fascinating paper showing how originally `Turkey' was a western term: the Ottomans used the word `Turk' only as a word denoting an ignorant peasant (and in the West, too, it frequently carried the connotation of 'barbarian'), but not to identify the nature of their empire or of its ruling ethnic group. Here the Ottomans followed the traditions of Islamic history which never concerned itself with national or ethnic differences. It is only with the advent of nationalism in the 19th century that the idea of the Turks as a nation developed in response, first, to the nationalism in the Balkans, then (rather later) in the Arabic lands, and finally of course, when Turkey proper was all that was left of the Ottoman Empire.

In several of the papers Lewis refers to the almost total lack of interest shown by Islamic countries in the West until the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century and the expansion of Western power into the Middle East in the 19th century. Thereafter patchy efforts to modernize the Islamic world by copying western models, often slowed up by the rejection of western values by conservatives, were only partially successful and failed to stem the advance of western power in the Middle East. This has greatly contributed to fuelling the Islamic resentment of the West, which the main theme of the second part of the book.

However, Lewis points out that even the most anti-western regimes have adopted not only western technology, but in many Islamic countries also such institutions as parliaments. From the western point of view, the role of women in most Islamic countries is still very restricted; but seen against earlier periods of Islam, women have seen noticeable advances in emancipation and education.

Lewis' analysis of the past is often masterly; but it would have served his reputation as an analyst of future trends better if some of his papers had not been reprinted. In 1991, after the liberation of Kuwait and Bush Senior's unwillingness to follow this up with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Lewis believed that, since Russia was unable and the USA unwilling to play an imperial role in the Middle East, the governments there `will be able to make their own decisions'. An article first published in 1996, still before the second Gulf War, describes as a `most telling indication of the new era' the fact that the West was no longer interested in bringing about regime change in the Middle East. In 1991 Lewis did not foresee the oil-thirst of China and India and opined that `the West will more easily find other sources of energy than the oil-producing states can find other cash customers.'

On the other hand, some older papers anticipate much that has become common currency later: in a 1957 paper, Lewis several times uses the phrase and the concept of `A Clash of Civilizations' to explain the tensions between Islam and the West, a full forty years before the publication of Samuel Huntingdon's famous book of the same title. Astonishingly accurate, too, is the forecast in 1969, when Nasser was still President, that his successor might very well make peace with Israel - which Sadat did ten years later.

In one fascinating lecture Lewis asks (and answers) the question why the Arab-Israeli conflict attracts so much more world interest than the many inter-Arab and inter-Muslim conflicts, some of which have involved oppression, casualties and suffering on a far greater scale than in all the Arab-Israeli disputes put together.

The book is pervaded by Lewis' empathetic understanding of all sides in the Middle East. That does not mean that he cannot be very forthright in his judgments, as in his attitude to fanaticism, in his regret at a number of features of Islamic history and society, or in his description of the double standards that have become habitual at the United Nations, exemplified by the 1975 condemnation of Zionism as a form of racism, a resolution supported by a number of nations and groups who use anti-Zionism as a cloak for their own racist antisemitism. The official Arab media, after all, then as now, propagated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and published cartoons that could have come straight out of the pages of the Stürmer.

Such criticisms has in recent years made Lewis the subject of some obloquy in the world of Islam, but the Arabic translator of one of his books described him as either a candid friend or an honourable enemy; and Lewis writes, 'I am content to abide by that judgment.'
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE, 7 Jul 2005
By A Customer
This review is from: From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East (Hardcover)
A must read book for the majority of the 'Western minds' who quite clearly lack perspective on the current events and dramas which have unfolded in the Western world during the past 4 years.

This should be a compulsory read for all British and American (indeed all Western) individuals who aspire to positions of power and wish to serve for the best interests of their people.

The centuries old struggle between Christianity and Islam is once again beginning to gain prominence. The final outcome of this struggle will almost certainly not be known by anyone living today. What is certain is that realistically, the outcome cannot and will not be shaped by any department or state or coalition, whether it is by force or by other means. The task is simply too complex and vast and the state of flux too fluid........One can simply only watch.......

Today's tragedies become tomorrow's myths which provide more ammunition for those who respect and draw strength from history. There is only one clear leader in drawing strength from history.

Bernard Lewis' book unveils this overall mood in a splendid account of the history between these two 'civilisations'. It is much simpler to understand the world today once the book has been read. It helps to smash the Western paradigm which will only then allow you to begin to appreciate how many other people view the world in which we live.

One can only hope that for goodness sake 'let us have respect for all in this world'.

A must, must read book.

10/10

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5.0 out of 5 stars Lifetime's Work, 2 Oct 2009
This review is from: From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East (Hardcover)


Bernard Lewis has been studying the Middle East for over sixty years and is widely respected in the Western world, both in academia and by policy makers. Indeed, it has been suggested that Lewis was one of the main advocates of the invasion of Iraq which he regarded as a suitable method of bringing modernity to the region, a suggestion to which the article "A Time for Toppling" lends weight. What is clear from this collection of writings is that Lewis has a far better understanding of the region than the politicians who decided to invade Iraq to effect regime change and remove Saddam Hussein.

Lewis chides Muslim political leaders for their uncritical repetition of traditionalist propagandist claims of Western racism, sexism and imperialism, while not dealing with "the politics of bribery, cajolery, blackmail and force" which he regards as a stumbling block to the establishment of Arab democracy and the key to the better life to which they have long aspired. He astutely observes that the conflict between Christianity and Islam was not simply a clash of civilisations but also a clash of objectives. For Christians it meant liberating the Holy Land from Islam, for Muslims it meant protecting the same area from infidels.

Although Lewis understands the Middle East and its culture he regards it as backward, with Muslims accepting the benefits of Western technology while ranting against its secular values. This he attributes in part to the fact that while Islam has had its internal divisions, they have not been on the scale of the rise of Protestantism or the Wars of Religion in the West which undermined much of traditional Christianity's political power. The unity of Islam remains both its strength and its weakness. In advocating that Muslims must do things for themselves he is implying that they have lacked the willingness to do so in the past.

In explaining the origins of the Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in a splendid article entitled, "Religion and Murder in the Middle East" he compares the unity of Islam itself with the enmity of Islamic nations towards each other. Middle Eastern nationalism has found a willing ally in the more conservative interpretations of Islam which has taken on an aggressive form since the Iranian revolution. In a perceptive comment Lewis identifies that prostitution in the West serves much the same sexual purpose as polygamy in the Middle East, although that fails to account for prostitution in Islamic countries. Perhaps the two civilisations have more in common after all.

Lewis is Jewish and critics have argued that his work seeks to defend the historical role of imperial powers and justify the creation of the foreign state of Israel on Arab soil. Lewis is content to leave judgement to others. Edward Said, who criticised Lewis's Orientalism, was a displaced Palestinian while Noam Chomsky is an outspoken critic of America's support for Israel. Lewis defends Zionism against charges of racism and regards anti-Zionism as "a cloak for vulgar anti-Semitism" much of it originating in inter-war German intellectual circles.

Based on the evidence contained in this book it is clear that Lewis's empathy with Israel outweighs any sympathy for Islam, especially radical Islamic thought which he regards as a relatively recent development, notwithstanding the assassination of three of the first four Caliphs. Lewis clearly understands motives and outcomes but his explanations are those of an outsider who disparages rather than an insider who justifies. He understands the Middle East, explains it for his audience and wants it to become modernised on democratic lines.

Arab nations may respect his analysis but they will not accept it. Muslim extremism requires opposition based on sound argument rather than suggestions that its proponents should abandon their political and doctrinal hatred of Western secularism. The "agonising choice" of whether to provide support "to those who share our ideals and aspirations......or become known as the cynical accomplices of whatever tyrant, however odious, is willing for a time to serve our purposes while we serve his" has not been resolved.

With the ethical dimension to New Labour's foreign policy completely discredited one wonders whether the West will ever comes to terms with the problems of the Middle East - no matter over how long a period it is studied. People can do considerably worse than consulting this erudite work in trying to find an answer. Whatever its shortcomings it is soberly written, avoids extremist positions, is comprehensive and deserves the five stars awarded.
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