Rating: 
Summary: Fails to answer its own question
Review: Don't buy this book if you're trying to understand current Middle Eastern politics or their recent blowback onto American soil. As the author notes in his preface, this book was already in page proofs when the Twin Towers fell down. So its status as a recent New York Times Bestseller says more about our turning to literature as a way of comprehending September 11 than it does about the author's intentions or the book's actual content. Lewis can't be blamed for that. But even so, he fails to address what the jacket blurb promises. It claims the book explores the intersection of Western and Middle Eastern cultures and, in particular, 'examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to understand why things had changed, and provides a fascinating portrait of culture in turmoil.' I thought I was going to get a short-course history of Muslim culture and politics and an unflinching analysis of how Islam engaged with Western imperialism. But Lewis provides nothing of the sort. Patched together from his public lectures and previously published articles, Lewis conducts a chatty, schematic and rather disjointed tour through Muslim social history in a tone you'd expect from a secondary school text or, in places, an inflight magazine. And he stops well short of the period that matters the most: the last fifty years when the creation of Israel, the struggle for oil, and the West's covert efforts to thwart regional communist insurgency combined to create the ugly and dangerous spectacle the Middle East is today. Only in the final ten pages does Lewis even address the issue of the book's title. But he doesn't actually explain what went wrong - he merely gives a dismissive precis of some possible answers and concludes (rather disingenuously, I think), that the future of the Middle East is in its own hands. That it most certainly isn't is more than half the problem: if only we could leave it alone! This book is useful if you want a brief introduction to the history and culture of the Ottoman Empire. But if you want to understand the political, ideological and economic forces which shaped the Middle East in the twentieth century, and inspired militant Islamists to violence, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much emphasis on the "WHAT" and too little on "WHY"
Review: "What Went Wrong?" is worth reading. Even so, given the superlative reviews it has received, I found it a bit disappointing. The book provides very interesting insight into how the Middle East and Europe have interacted over the past 1,400 years. It provides a novel and fact-filled description of the Middle East's reaction to the Renaissance and modernization in Europe. Unfortunately, Lewis fails to argue WHY the Middle East reacted the way it did to modernization in Europe and the West. Lewis does offer some reasons for the "whys" of Middle Eastern history. But he declines to takes sides in the debate and does not offer his own opinion as to why things have evolved the way they have. Instead, he allows readers to draw their own conclusions. The result is that readers may finish the book feeling a bit empty. After reading the book, I felt I had gained a fresh understanding of Middle Eastern history. Lewis presents loads of important ideas in this book, but he does not draw solid conclusions based on them. Nevertheless, sometimes it is not possible to know the exact whys of history. This book is aptly titled and written. After all, it is called "What Went Wrong?" and not "Why Did Things Go Wrong?" Moreover, the book is filled with entertaining facts. For example, I had always believed that Arabs invented the modern number and decimal system (Arab numerals), but Lewis explains that the Hindus actually created this system. The Arabs then adopted it and helped to spread it around the world.
Lewis has a very interesting chapter on Time, Space and Modernity. The chapter is fascinating. But it lacks an overriding premise and forces readers to draw tenuous conclusions about how the Arab sense of space and timing relates to the modern Middle East. With a strong conclusion, this chapter could have been great. Final critique: Though Lewis writes reasonably well, he is not a journalist. His style can be a tad academic and he uses the passive tense often. He also tends to write long sentences. As a result, his book takes longer than necessary to read. All in all, this is a good book and worth buying, though I might have enjoyed it more had I expected a bit less of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Lewis and Limitations
Review: The book was informative about the historical development of Islamic civilizations. However, it seems Lewis fails to answer his own question. He provides excellent analyses in certain parts of the book, although one could argue that he makes assumptions in some parts, too. (For instance, he argues that Ottomans implemented clergy in Islam because they learned this from Byzantium). He indicates that the Ottoman Empire tried to implement reforms, but that they were not successful enough. When at the end of the book he proposes solutions for Middle Eastern countries and Islamic regimes, he surprisingly excludes Turkey. While not an Islamic regime, Turkey is 98% Muslim, earning it the characterization of Muslim and secular. What he suggests as a solution -that countries of the region enact "freedom of the economy from corrupt mismanagement, freedom of women from male oppression, freedom of citizens from tyranny (Pp.159) -- are in actuality already being enacted in Turkey. It is nonetheless evident that most scholars do not recognize Turkey's developmental track in this regard. Moreover, some problems Lewis mentioned are not just Muslim countries' problems. Similar problems can arguably be found in any Christian third world country. What went wrong? is an appropriate question, but it needs to be answered to the degree the situation requires. Lewis is an accomplished historian; it appears, however, that he wrote this book in a rush.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing Wrong With This Book
Review: I enjoyed "What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East," by Bernard Lewis, quite a lot. Lewis is probably the premier Western scholar of the Middle East and Islam, and this book is one of his most recent efforts. Although one might be tempted to pigeon-hole this effort as an author capitalizing on Sept 11, in reality this book was in publication at that time, having been inspired by an earlier lecture series, I think. "What Went Wrong" contrasts Islam and Christendom since the rise of Islam. It is important to remember that while in the West we tend to view Islamic countries as trailing the West in major "measures" of civilization, this was not always true. When European (Christian) countries were languishing in the dark ages, Islamic scientists and physicians were among the most advanced on the globe. Poetry, literature, music, economics, and military prowess: Muslim countries and peoples exceeded all others in these areas. Then it all changed. Slowly at first, then more quickly. Soon, the West was the seat of learning and science, and the hegemony was reversed. In this book, Lewis seeks to try to explain why this happened. In doing so, he explores Christian and Islamic attributes of many aspects of the two kinds of societies. Some other reviewers felt like this book was too simplistic or too vague. I think they're looking too hard at the topic. Lewis seems to be saying simply this: when Islam came to power in Arabia, long before the end of the first Millenium AD, it was the most progressive social movement around. It enabled basic women's rights (if little more than basic ones), and simple but powerful social constructs that catapulted Arab and the Middle Eastern societies into the forefront of social thought, at least for that time. But it was not flexible or adaptable. As a result, when Christendom experienced a Renaissance, Islamic society was unable to match those advances; in fact, uninterested in matching them. Lewis presents many examples of this dichotomy: units of measure, use of technology and medicine, tolerance for secular government, and some deceptively simple Western measures of "civilization," such as art and music. Taken as a whole, these points seem to support his argument that Islamic society didn't continue to advance as quickly because it wasn't conceived with that advancement in mind. This book is a fascinating look at this basic contrast, and I found it a provocative and worthwhile read. I would recommend it to anyone: no reader need fear the language or content will be too difficult. I give it five stars for its insight and the well-supported arguments.
Rating: 
Summary: what went wrong? nothing, if by Islam you mean...
Review: the Ottoman Turks. There is a subtle slight of hand in this book. Lewis uses the Ottoman Empire as a proxy for Islam, and tries to explain why it succumbed to the West. Yet, the direct descendants of the Ottoman Turks, namely, the modern state of Turkey, is a modern, Westernized, secular state. In other words, the heart of the Ottoman Empire did successfully adapt and catch up to the West. The real question should not be "what happened to Islam?"; it should be "what happened to the Arabs?". And to answer that question, you need to examine the differing responses of the Ottoman Arabs and Turks to the West (if there were any), and, the different experiences of Turkey and the Arab regions after the fall of empire. Specifically, you have to examine the impact of colonization on the development of Arab polity, economy, etc. And, you have to look at the influence of the West and the Cold War in shaping the independent Arab states. Without this analysis, you can't understand why there is such a large gap with Turkey, much less with the rest of the West. Lewis does none of these things. As a result, even after reading this book, I still don't know what went wrong.
Rating:
Summary: doesn't answer question
Review: this book is really a review of some important differences between islam and the west - eg, attitudes to women - but it doesn't answer the question it poses. why, for example, did western science surpass islamic science? lewis doesn't say. why did islam's attempts to compete economically with the west ultimately fail? the answer is obliquely hinted at but never satisfactorily explained. instead, lewis spends an inordinate amount of time on social and cultural issues - ie, the role of women, islamic reaction to western literature and art, etc. while this is interesting stuff, i don't think anyone would argue that the west prevailed because it treated women better, or that islam declined because muslims didn't read shakespeare! this isn't to belittle social and cultural factors, only to emphasize that it takes money and knowledge (and arms) to supplant a great empire like islam. "money makes the world go round" is the old saying. it's here that the most important reason for islam's decline lies. lewis also places too much of the blame on islam. he completely ignores the complicity of the west, especially in the colonial and cold war eras, not to mention its continued involvement in middle east politics and economics. it's true, as lewis says, that islam had already been in decline for centuries by the time the "infidels" invaded. but this doesn't mean the west hasn't played a big role in islam's continued problems. the book is a useful counterweight to the usual reason thrown up to explain islam's decline, namely, western imperialism. and i think some of the answer does lie in some of the points he raises. but to get the whole answer, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Great insight into the decline of a civilization
Review: I've read three of Lewis' books now and I would say unequivocally that for anyone interested in understanding how the Middle East got to where it is now, you will find very compelling explanations in this work. The rise and spread of Islam is front and center. The overriding theme of the book is that what made Islam successful at the beginning became a trap as time went on. Specifically, the wildfire like spread of Islam around the Mediterranean forced homogeneity (a common language, Arabic, and common basic moral values) upon a formerly disparate population. Unfortunately, this was done not by a sectarian government, but by a theocracy. Since religion by nature is righteous, dogmatic and rigid, this great culture would eventually succumb to cultural, economic and scientific rigor mortis. Meanwhile the barbarians of Europe were catching up with the cultural achievments of the Middle East, and daring to experiment with the mix of government and religion. Eventually, European civilization surpased the Middle East and Europeans ventured world wide rather than sticking close to home as did Muslims. This brought more resources and fresh ideas back to Europe...potent fuel feeding the growth of European civilization. The clash between these two great civilizations dragged on until European armies simply crushed the declining and backward armies of the Middle East setting off a period of colonialism that sucked what little life was left out of the Islamic Middle East. There is much more juicy information than this preview. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A troubling book.
Review: The title of my comments refers not just to the future of Islamic states but further to the nature of Bernard Lewis' book. Ultimately I found it dissatisfying in that I was led to believe by the book's title that I would find some less nebulous answer posed by the book's title: alas that didn't happen-I was left with as many questions at the end as I was at the beginning. On of the biggest questions that begged to be answered and in my opinion wasn't is why medieval Islamic culture was so predominant and contremporary Islamic culture is mired in issues that appear to have taken the cultural impetous away from a moribund Islamic society. I realize that in his Conclusion Lewis offers islamic reasons postulated for their feeling of having been passed by as the train of history passed through the last four hundred years but that concluding chapter left me with the above emptiness-I'm like Dicken's waif, "Is there more Sir"? I found the "meat" of chapter five to be the most satisfying of the book in that Lewis writes at length about the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that separates the militant Islamic world view and the Western world view. If the most satisfying in one respect it was equally the most disturbing and most depressing because Lewis does not mince words when articulating the vastness of this chasm. I was shaken by the depth of the abyss: Is there no way to bridge the chasm? Is there no common ground between total acceptance of militant Islam and death as an infidel? If Lewis is right in chapter five then millitant Islam must win because its opponents must kill and therefore deny their own intellectual abhorrence of such acts-they win when their opponents lose their life in one scenario or their morality in the other. This possibility is transposed when I can go to Perth airport and travel to Dubai in the United Arab Imirates and see the lifestyle so hated by the Saudis and the Taliban and Islamic militants in any country. What's happening here? Why can the Gulf States avoid the religiolus cataclysm suffered by other Islamic states? These are the questions I would like answered. "What Went Wrong" was a wonderful read-it's a dense book full of information about much that I knew little about and my small negatives should in no way dissuade potenial readers from enjoying a satisfying book.
Rating:
Summary: A respected scholar in decline
Review: It is sad when a respected scholar continues to publish when his faculties are no longer at their keenest. But it can also be, unintentionally, funny. Such is the case with Bernard Lewis" "What Went Wrong." The most hilarious part of the book is Lewis' peculiar obsession towards the end of his volume with the idea that the failure of the Islamic world to adopt Western classical music is the key to the Islamic world's problems. I'm as fond of Beethoven and Bach as Lewis is, but the idea that the key to the problems of the Islamic world is the failure to listen to the glorious Ninth or to "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," is, shall we say, eccentric. Lewis does note drolly, "Latterly [in the Islamic world] there has been some interest in pop music and rock music. It is too early to say what this may portend." Sadly, this musical theory of history is the closest Lewis comes to explaining "what went wrong." His knowledge of Arab history (particularly of the Ottoman Empire, which is really what the book focuses on) is encyclopedic and the book is filled with fascinating details and intriguing anecdotes. But there is no integration of these details into any sort of coherent explanation for "What Went Wrong" in the Islamic Mideast during the last several centuries. And yet such an explanation is possible. As Robert Wesson noted in "The Imperial Order," empires tend to be culturally, technologically, and economically unproductive. The great cultural florescence of the Islamic Middle East occurred during the ninth through twelfth centuries, after the decline of the Abbassid empire and before the rise of the Ottoman empire. As Fernand Braudel noted, in his "A History of Civilizations," "the decline of the Baghdad caliphate...made possible a degree of intellectual freedom, if only by enabling a scholar to flee from one State or one princely protector to another nearby." When most of the Islamic Middle East was once again subjugated to centralized imperial rule by the Ottoman empire, it was predictable that the end result would be Islamic social and cultural decay. Empires breed decadence. The other key point which Lewis ignores is that the Islamic world has, throughout most of its history, generally been much more democratic than the elitist, hierarchical West. There has never been a Pope in Islam; the ultimate determinant of Islamic belief and practice has always been the consensus of the Islamic community, the "umma." A broad popular consensus is almost invariably conservative or actively reactionary. How would Copernicus' theory that the earth moved around the sun or Darwin's theory of evolution have fared if subjected to the judgment of the general populace? As it happens, something much like this actually did happen in the Islamic world: in the late Middle Ages, a consensus developed among the Islamic faithful that Greek science and philosophy were un-Islamic and needed to be purged from the Islamic community. As Toby Huff explained in his classic "The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West," "The possibility of opposition from the local 'ulama' [popular religious scholars] was thus a constant threat and stemmed from the fact that the religious scholars -- who orchestrated their own political constituency -- and the local populace held views sharply different on a variety of theological, metaphysical, and scientific issues from the philosophers." The democratic, anti-elitist cast of Islam, Huff later adds, meant that "[i]n this system, each person's interpretation was as good as everyone else's..." A scientific elite holding views different from the popular majority was unacceptable in Islam. In the West, the populace was of course also often hostile to scientific and intellectual advances, but the Western scientific and intellectual elites did not much care: submission to the popular will was not as important historically in the West as in Islam. Why did not Lewis note the well-established fact that the decline of the Islamic Middle East was due to empire and to a destructive form of democratic populism? Could it be that the current American obsession with exporting American-style democracy to the Mideast and establishing an American-controlled empire in the region made it inexpedient for Lewis to note that the path of democracy and empire led to the decline and decadence of one of the greatest of human civilizations? Democracy and imperialism destroyed the Roman Republic and brought catastrophe to classical Athens. During the twentieth century, the Europeans experimented with various systems for turning "the people" into God: the one common thread among Bolshevism, Nazism, and social democracy was the deification of the masses -- the Volk, the proletariat, the people. Combined with the forces of European imperialism, this nearly resulted in the destruction of European civilization via two horrifying World Wars and multiple Holocausts (see, e.g., Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism"). Now the United States of America is marching forward along the well-worn path of democracy and imperialism. Was Lewis reluctant to allow Americans to see in the historical tragedy of the Islamic Mideast our own future if we continue along the path upon which we are now treading?
Rating:
Summary: Echoing history
Review: America is a rather strange place in the world when it comes to history; ignoring it untill a crisis breaks out, being engaged emotionally and then returning to the status quo. However, around the world, the past is present. Lewis shows how the history of the middle east- it's culture, languge and religous experinces- sowed the seeds for our current day crisis.
Lewis points out how simple things like the lack of a word for a republic government hinders understanding of westeren vaules. Most profound though is Lewis's assuration that the middle east needs a reformation; Hugnots and Cathlotics killed each other for hundreds of years and still do in Ireland. Thus, according to Lewis, christianity chose seperation of church and state over religous strife; However, since there never has been a schism like that of christianity, Islam has failed to question and review itself.
Lewis is obviously an expert and does a good job writing. He does offer a glimspe of reform that took place in Turkey; however, the middle east is still asking how the westeren, zionist pigs ruined them rather than how they can modernize and become a peaceful part of the world once more.
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