by Bernard Lewis
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Product Description
Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies," Bernard Lewis has been for half a century one of the West's foremost scholars of Islamic history and culture, the author of over two dozen books, most notably The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Political Language of Islam, and The Muslim Discovery of Europe. Eminent French historian Robert Mantran has written of Lewis's work: "How could one resist being attracted to the books of an author who opens for you the doors of an unknown or misunderstood universe, who leads you within to its innermost domains: religion, ways of thinking, conceptions of power, culture--an author who upsets notions too often fixed, fallacious, or partisan." In Islam and the West, Bernard Lewis brings together in one volume eleven essays that indeed open doors to the innermost domains of Islam. Lewis ranges far and wide in these essays. He includes long pieces, such as his capsule history of the interaction--in war and peace, in commerce and culture--between Europe and its Islamic neighbors, and shorter ones, such as his deft study of the Arabic word watan and what its linguistic history reveals about the introduction of the idea of patriotism from the West. Lewis offers a revealing look at Edward Gibbon's portrait of Muhammad in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (unlike previous writers, Gibbon saw the rise of Islam not as something separate and isolated, nor as a regrettable aberration from the onward march of the church, but simply as a part of human history); he offers a devastating critique of Edward Said's controversial book, Orientalism; and he gives an account of the impediments to translating from classic Arabic to other languages (the old dictionaries, for one, are packed with scribal errors, misreadings, false analogies, and etymological deductions that pay little attention to the evolution of the language). And he concludes with an astute commentary on the Islamic world today, examining revivalism, fundamentalism, the role of the Shi'a, and the larger question of religious co-existence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. A matchless guide to the background of Middle East conflicts today, Islam and the West presents the seasoned reflections of an eminent authority on one of the most intriguing and little understood regions in the world.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
 Islam is nothing to do with West, Like wise, West is nothing to do with Islam, 2007-03-09
All seem that Islam is in conflict with West and vise versa. But the thruth is Muslim Arabs(not Islam) and West has long been rivals, poilitically and economically, since the raise of Islam as a religion in Arabs's land. The conflict is a rather power struggle than a belief in Islam as religion. Unfortunately, since arabs are muslim majority, it seems that the problem lies on the Islam as a religion. This is very dangerous for humankind.
No Matter whatever the writer try to explain. All idea that position Islam a religion, or any other religion, against something, i.e, West, is bad idea.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 West agaist Islam, 2006-11-10
One understands the relationship and the conflict between the Christian west and the Islam east. Good study.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Well written and interesting, 2004-12-05
This book is an introduction to the history of Islam's interactions with the West. It begins with an overview of the advances of Muslim armies into Europe and explains that Western voyages of discovery soon led to the West surpassing the Muslim world economically and then militarily. And we see that in the century prior to the end of World War One, the Muslims were in steady retreat against Europeans. Lewis shows how in Western eyes, the Ottoman Empire went from being regarded as wicked and threatening to being mysterious but weak.
That brings up the issue of how Muslims live under non-Muslim rule. And we discover that the major issue is simply whether or not Muslims are free to practice their way of life.
Lewis then brings up the issue of translating Arabic terms. In most cases, translations are not a big problem. But there are some concepts which are not really the same in Arabic as they are in Western languages, such as "state," "freedom," "democracy," or "revolution." The author shows how the meaning of these words relates to Muslim behavior when Muslims have Western allies in wartime.
Perhaps the most interesting section is the one on Orientalism. Here, the author describes the frightful politicization of Middle East studies. Lewis shows how politics, generally antizionist politics, has often substituted for scholarship in this field. In my opinion, this understates the problem. The academic world has to maintain standards to be of value. If these standards are abandoned in one part of history, that will bring down the esteem and value of the entire discipline.
This is a very informative book, and it's easy to read. I highly recommend it.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
 Disjointed, but some interesting insights, 2004-04-05
Bernard Lewis, of course, is the well-known Princeton professor (emeritus) who emerged, after 9/11, as the principal "interpreter" of the world of Islam for U.S. audiences. In the introduction to this book, he proposes that he will illustrate the way that the worlds of Christendom and Islam view each other. Unfortunately, as noted by the previous reviewers, this is a collection of essays (several of which were previously published) rather than a de novo work, and the individual parts are only variably subordinate to the overarching goal. Despite this limitation, which gives the book a disjointed feel, there are some valuable insights here. The first essay is a very brief review of the history of the interaction between Islam and Christendom, which makes the important point that, for much of the history of that interaction, the European kingdoms were of only peripheral interest to the vastly greater civilization of Islam. Subsequent essays briefly review the history of the Shi'a, and the problems of cross-cultural communication illustrated by the difficulties encountered in attempting translation of Islamic texts. There are effective critiques of the late Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, which claims that the study of non-Western, and particularly Islamic, history by Westerners constitutes cultural imperialism masquerading as historical analysis. But the most useful insight to be gleaned from these essays is the explication of the role that religion plays in the world of Islam, and the contrast between Islamic and non-Islamic views of the proper relation between religion and the State. Although we are slowly becoming more aware of this fundamental difference between our own view of the place of religion in the affairs of man and that of many, perhaps most, in the Islamic world, Lewis manages to make this difference explicitly clear. The insight would be most valuable to those seeking to build new polities in the Middle East.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
pretty good comparsion, 2003-05-22
In Islam and the West, Lewis takes a look at the relationship between Islam and the West. The have had conflict for since the early days of Islam. Lewis takes a look at conflicts such as the crusades, the three Muslim invasions of Europe-Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, Ottamans in Eastern Europe and the Tartars in Russia. He also looks at how the Muslim world in North Africa and the Middle East was one time more advanced then the Europe and how the two have reveresed positions. What Lewis spends a lot of time on is the perceptions of Islam had of the West and the perceptions that the West had on Islam. He looks at each side tried to discredit the other and how each perceivced themselves. Lewis also deals with the rise of political Islam in the 20th century after the end of WWI after the break up of the Ottaman empire. Overall, a pretty good comprision and hsitory like Lewis's other works.
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