by Bernard Lewis (Author)
President Bush has made it clear that we are engaged in a war against terrorism. But for Usama bin Laden and his followers this is religious war, a war for Islam against infidels, especially the United States, the greatest power in the world of the infidels. In this book Bernard Lewis shows us where the anger and frustration have come from, and the extent to which almost the entire Muslim world is affected by poverty and tyranny. He looks at the influence of extreme Wahhabist doctrines in the Saudi kingdom, where custodianship of Islam's holy places and the revenues of oil have given world-wide impact to what would otherwise have been an extremist fringe in a marginal country. He looks at American double standards, which have long caused Muslim anger. He tells us what the real meaning is of Islamic fundamentalism', jihad' and fatwa', and why the peoples of the Middle East are conscious of history in a way that most Americans find difficult to understand.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 192
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Weidenfeld &Nicolson
Published: 08 Apr 2003
ISBN 10: 029764548X
ISBN 13: 9780297645481
Book Overview: This is the first time Bernard Lewis, the leading Western historian of Islam, has written about current history. WHAT WENT WRONG was concerned with 16th-19th centuries We have sold 12,500 copies of WHAT WENT WRONG since May. It has been sold to 17 countries and spent 15 weeks in the New York Times bestseller list.