From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East

From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East

by Bernard Lewis (Author)

Synopsis

Bernard Lewis is internationally recognised as an outstanding scholar and historian of Middle Eastern and Islamic history, who has charted the great centuries of Islamic power and civilisation but also, in his recent books What Went Wrong? and The Crisis Of Islam , Islam's calamitous and bitter decline. This book collects together his most interesting and significant essays, papers, reviews and lectures. They range from historical subjects such as religion and politics in Islam and Judaism, the culture and people of Iran, the great mosques of Istanbul, Middle Eastern food and feasts, the Mughals and the Ottomans, the rise and fall of British power in the Middle East and North Africa, Islam and racism - to current history such as the significance of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. This book includes discussion of the problems of Western historians dealing with the Islamic world. Several pieces have never been published before.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 350
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Orion
Published: 13 May 2004

ISBN 10: 0297848844
ISBN 13: 9780297848844
Book Overview: Bernard Lewis's work has become increasingly well known in recent years. THE CRISIS OF ISLAM was a Sunday Times bestseller This book brings together his very best essays from a lifetime's work Includes unpublished material

Media Reviews
'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
Author Bio
Bernard Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Born in London in 1916, he was Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of London from 1949 to 1974. His book have been translated into more than twenty languages, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Indonesian. He is a member of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Institut de France. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.