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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 sritten, 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.
the first book to read for a broad history of the region
| Customer Rating:  | Bernard Lewis is among the top historians of the Middle East. This book is testament not only to the depth and breadth of his knowledge, but also to his craft in writing history. _The Middle East_ is an excellent introduction to the broad themes, conflicts and personalities of the region since the age of Mohammed.
Islamic civilization is complex: it involves a number of peoples (Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongols), competing interpretations of Islam (Sunni, Shi'a, Sufi, Ismai'li) and a number of significant ruling empires (Mameluk, Ottoman, Safavid, Abbysid, Ummayad) that unfold over 1500 years. As Lewis points out, the culture of the Middle East does not have the continuity of China or India - rather, each successive ruling group brought their own unique spin on islam and governance. The brilliance of this book is that it clearly (if briefly) illustrates the relationship and network of ideas and people over time.
Certainly there are flaws with such an overview - minutae and details that some would prefer are left out, while others may find fault with the level of specificity given. I believe Lewis does an exemplary job of striking a balance - not only in terms of political history, but also of addressing the economic and social changes and challenges the Middle East encountered over the last millenium. In particular, his discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries was excellent, summarizing the struggle the Islamic world faces as it seeks to embrace and mimic the indsutrialized West while it is simultaneously repelled and humiliated by it. Similarly his treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict, while brief, covers the most important elements in understanding the points of disagreement.
Of the many books on the history of the Middle East, I recommend this as the place to begin for a solid, broad overview of the major events politically, socially and economically. Highly recommended. |
More than we can chew
| Customer Rating:  | I love this subject, but this book is way more than anyone can meaningfully digest - a long litany of changing names, dates, and places littered with academic sounding words such as "perforce", "Heathendom", and "a-Caliphal sovereignty". I've never seen so many "Suzerains" between two covers before. The problem with the book is that while it (apparently encyclopedically) lists who ruled what, how they got to power, and how they died - or otherwise came to lose power again - one gets no sense of the soul of the people. There's no story here.
Reza Aslan (No god but God) provides a fascinating sense of what the prominent Players went through during the origins and evolution of Islam. It may be overly imaginative and underly scientific but these were people and they must have thought, acted, and talked like people. You wouldn't know it from Lewis's book.
Colin Thubron (in his travelogue, Shadow of the Silk Road) brings the Assassins of Persia to life. Lewis gives us a handful of dull paragraphs.
So, I looked up Bernard Lewis on Wikipedia and I guess he's a really highly regarded big-shot in Middle Eastern/Muslim history. That doesn't mean that this book (at least, of the number he's written) serves well the amateur historian trying to get a better handle on this critical region.
Part of the problem may have been that I listened to this book on CD in my car. The reader has the voice and manner of a newscaster. (16 CDs worth of newscasting). He seems to slowww down and E N U N C I A T E some words and phrases at random, disrupting the narrative. His crisp delivery, rather than making the sentences flow, crystallizes individual syllables in a very distracting and unfollowable fashion.
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Concrete-Bound History
| Customer Rating: | This book serves as an epitome for the wrong way to teach history. Instead of recognizing history as an integrated narrative on human civilization, Dr. Lewis' book presents Middle Eastern history as a database of names, dates and facts. Granted, you will find plenty of information in here on the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, the Arab conquests, the Mamluks, the Seljuks and the like. However, you will not find emphasis on the important individuals or the widely held ideas that shaped and drove Middle Eastern history.
For example, al-Ghazali, who is one of the most important intellectuals in Middle Eastern history, is hardly mentioned at all in this book. Before al-Ghazali, there was a golden age in the Middle East, where Muslim scholars in Baghdad were translating an extensive number of works from the ancient Greeks and Muslims were making unprecedented advances in mathematics, medicine, astronomy and philosophy. However, it was al-Ghazali who in his work "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" essentially single-handedly persuaded the Muslim world that reason and faith are incompatible and therefore reason (i.e., Aristotelian thought) must be rejected in favor of faith. In terms of ideas, the wide acceptance of al-Ghazali's work is the most significant turning point in Middle Eastern history and yet al-Ghazali himself is only mentioned on about 4 out of 400 pages of this book.
Whenever I inform friends and colleagues that I enjoy reading about Middle Eastern history, Bernard Lewis' books are almost invariably recommended to me. If his other books are like this one then I do not recommend the works of Bernard Lewis for recreational reading. Nevertheless, I am still giving this book three stars, since it does contain a wealth of (unfortunately unintegrated) facts. |
Boring even for a history buff
| Customer Rating: | | Even for someone who enjoys "real" and substantial history books, as opposed to more trendy light reading, this was too boring to finish. The level of detail compares to a Norman Davies level but without the same kind of purpose or cohesion. |
A Good Introduction to a Complex History
| Customer Rating: | I cannot agree with the statements of some that this is "dull" or "booring". I am not aware that a serious reader expects non-fiction, history books to be exciting! I think that says more about the reader than the author and this book.
Professor Lewis has done and excellent job of providing an introduction to the history of this area and setting out a foundational explanation of the genesis of problems that exist today. I found the organization difficult to stay with at times but I am more accustomed to a linear historical format.
One does not have to be a serious student of history to appreciate what this book offers. I would recommend this book highly, especially for an understanding on a very basic level, of why the U.S. has no business invading the area. |
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