 What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East Books In Print, Audio Books. |
| Home » All Books |
|
|
What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
buy bestselling books in print, audio books
|
 |
List Price: $12.95
Our Price:
$10.36
You Save: $2.59
|
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] |
Book : Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
|
What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East description
Bernard Lewis is the West's greatest historian and interpreter of the Near East. Books such as The Middle East and The Arabs in History are required reading for anybody who hopes to understand the region and its people. Now Lewis offers What Went Wrong?, a concise and timely survey of how Islamic civilization fell from worldwide leadership in almost every frontier of human knowledge five or six centuries ago to a "poor, weak, and ignorant" backwater that is today dominated by "shabby tyrannies ... modern only in their apparatus of repression and terror." He offers no easy answers, but does provide an engaging chronicle of the Arab encounter with Europe in all its military, economic, and cultural dimensions. The most dramatic reversal, he says, may have occurred in the sciences: "Those who had been disciples now became teachers; those who had been masters became pupils, often reluctant and resentful pupils." Today's Arab governments have blamed their plight on any number of external culprits, from Western imperialism to the Jews. Lewis believes they must instead commit to putting their own houses in order: "If the peoples of Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, [and] poverty and oppression." Anybody who wants to understand the historical backdrop to September 11 would do well to look for it on these pages. --John Miller |
|
What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East Customer Reviews
|
|
|
|
♥♥♥♥♥ |
What Went Wrong? A Partial Answer, but a Good Start
|
There appear to be two schools of historical thought on the Middle East, and on Islam in a larger sense. The first is represented by Edward Said and is largely a post-modernist phenomenon. The second is best represented by Bernard Lewis and employs a more traditional, objectivist approach.
What Went Wrong? is a short but dense exploration of the wresting of civilizational dominance from Islam to Christendom that started around the 15th century and continues to this day. It is concerned with the Islamic perception and response to the events of this decline. The book however does not really answer its own question, and somewhat disappointingly it's a conglomeration of several different essays and lectures the author presented in Germany (before 9/11 coincidentally.) This does not mean it is value-less though.
The partial answer given is a fittingly polyglot one, covering most everything from military arms and organization to political structures to culture and the arts. The most major theme that I drew however is namely the Islamic superiority complex, rightly justified in the high Middle Ages, that led Islamic civilization to "rest on it's laurels" and stagnate -concerning itself with only itself- while the rest of the world simmered along a tortured but vibrant path towards progress. This superiority complex is still as strong today, fueling both biased and piecemeal attempts at modernization and the explosive frustration of being so clearly behind when those attempts inevitably fail.
This book is also one of those examples of when studying the "other" helps you perhaps learn more about yourself in the process. What is so amazing is that not only can no clear, striking answer be given to the question of what went wrong but the world very evidently can't answer the more important question of what went right with western ascendance. The west itself produces no concurring chorus to preach to the world the secrets of its success. Simply look at the diverging platforms of the different western political parties as prescriptions for future prosperity and the myriad authors giving all sorts of explanations for that prosperity, from Jared Diamond's Accident of Geography to Victor Davis Hanson's Culture is Fate. Although I certainly have my belief as to what the west does right (and may be doing wrong recently) so do others who have looked at the same data and convinced themselves just as strongly of opposite conclusions.
Mr. Lewis' most central argument as to both what went right and what went wrong seems to lay in the separation of church and state. But this is by no means his only answer and it would be a disservice not to recommend reading the book to gain not only a greater understanding of his partial answer but also to see into the spectrum of more important related questions and unknowns that unfolds in the intellectual pursuit started by the simple query of what went wrong. The most chilling possibility that glints dimly in the shadow of the author's answer is that Islam, as an all encompassing religion, culture and political system in one, may be unsuitable to ever reversing its relative slide with the rest of the world. The Christian Reformation was a hard fought, long, brutal and bloody affair. Can Islam restore itself to a fully functioning civilization in the world of peer civilizations (let alone really co-exist with them) and avoid the need for a reformation? And if not, just how bloody will Islam's reformation be? Current trends in the world leave the first question unanswered, but the second's answer decidely and darkly obvious.
|
|