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Summary: But Also, What Could Be Different
Review: For centuries, the Islamic world was ahead of others in civilization and achievement. Yet centuries ago, the balance changed. The Moslem world was to become a backwater, and to remain that way; even in the twenty-first century, with the rest of the world paying mightily for the oil that happened to be beneath major Islamic states, they remain rich bumpkins out of tune not just with the West, but with much that was good in the modern world. The 9-11 attacks have not changed this assessment, only reinforced that the Islamic world lags behind. It turns out that for centuries, members of that world have been asking themselves how it was that they have been so fully surpassed. _What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response_ (Oxford University Press), written before 9-11, by Bernard Lewis does not so much answer the question as examine it from many sides. Lewis attempts to look at the problem in a concise, pithy work that cannot solve the current crisis, but ought to be read by those who have a stake in it. After the bustling medieval period, the stagnation in the Muslim countries was capped by repeated defeats of the Ottoman sultanate and cession of lands to Christian powers. The Islamic powers began thinking the unthinkable - what could they adopt from the Western way of doing things to reverse the trend? New weapons, and even more revolutionarily, Westerners to teach how the weapons were to be used, became part of the Muslim attempt at entering the modern world. Lewis pointedly does not make a case for Western culture being inherently better than Islamic culture. But there is little reciprocity of interest, even now, in Muslim lands for the culture of the West. Lewis points out that Mozart and Shakespeare and jazz, for instance, are loved all around the world, but seldom pass national boundaries into Muslim consciousness. There were Ottoman and Arab and Iranian leaders and scholars who called for change in this inward focus, as they saw the advance of the West, but the calls were generally unheeded. Reformers split into two camps. There were those who wanted to adapt and accommodate modernity, but maintain a generally Muslim order. There were others who angrily insisted that any decline was due to straying from true Islam, and that traitors within their own societies had caused the decline. Obviously, these two sides still have their voices currently. Lewis maintains that the question "What went wrong?" which has bothered Muslim intellectuals and leaders for centuries is not really important to answer. It will no longer do to blame, as has been done successively, the Mongols, the French and British colonialists, the Jews, or the Americans. What is important is for those societies to start making a difference in themselves, "to abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences and join their talents, energies and resources in a common creative endeavor" for their own good and for that of the world. It is a rousing recommendation from someone who recognizes the historic importance of the Muslim world, and it is sensible (to this Westerner's way of thinking), but whether those called upon to undertake it will read Lewis's cogent words, and having read will act, is doubtful.
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Summary: OLD STUFF
Review: This is a very disappointing book. It is an anthology of old lectures going all the way back into the 1980s. The material is disjointed with much redundancy. The flow of the text is that of speech and has none of the tigntness and precision normally attributed to the written word. Only the last and short chapter deals with the subject of "What Went Wrong?" (Text that was published as a magazine article.) And, the answer to the question is "Who knows?" This books will add somewhere between "very little to nothing" to the readers understanding of the Mid-East situation.
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Summary: What else can go wrong?
Review: Bernard Lewis is a someone who has once again reconsructed bi-polar categories of thinking which undermines any fresh manner of perceiving Islam. In his book; "What Went Wrong?" it is evident that he is reifying the image and perception of the Muslim world in the negative. He makes the claim that Muslims have been in some intellectual or cultural "lack" or are "inadequate" because unlike the hyberbolic "west", they do not listen to Beethoven or read Decartes. As a reader, I feel that Lewis has missed the mark in understanding much about thinking critically about how polarized the Islamic world has been throughout history. I am sad to say that this text leaves you in the vacous battle of the West/ East or in this case, Islam and the west. I do not recommend Lewis' s work for anyone interested in learning about Islam for the first time but if you want an example of how Lewis' West looks like, please do read his work.
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Summary: Useful summary of wide sweep of history
Review: Lewis does an intellectually honest job in this book of clearly identifying that which is presented as historical fact, i.e. quotes from original documents, dates of battles, trade and income figures, from the conclusions he draws from the facts. I have not read a review which faults his presentation of historical fact.
His conclusions are far from dogmatic. Lewis considers a number of factors that might account for the decline of the Islamic world, in each case, he discusses the strengths and weaknessese of each possible explanation.
Given that Lewis has been studying the Islamic world for longer than most of his readers have been alive, it is difficult to conclude that he is not qualified to draw historical conclusions. I find it interesting that only the Islamic world asserts that it cannot be understood by outsiders. The French don't claim that Americans cannot understand French history. The Chinese don't claim that only native Chinese speakers can understand Chinese history. If Lewis doesn't understand Islamic history then no one outside of Islam can or does.
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Summary: DON'T BOTHER
Review: This is yet another book rushed into publication to capitalize on a hot topic. I read the book as carefully as I could and thought it was a pointless recitation of facts. The only thing I can remember that went wrong is the opppressed half of the Arab population, women, can't contribute to society.
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Summary: Please read this book
Review: I really don't have much to say. This is an excellent book. Very informative. It took me a day to finish it. The title tells you what the book is about. Everybody should read this superb book.
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Summary: Comprehensive, critical history.
Review: This book is a MUST for anyone who wants a comprehensive, critical history of the rise and fall of the Muslim empire. Many specifics in this book give tremendous insight into current world problems. This was a three-night read for me and I am going to re-read it just to make sure I am familiar enough with it to qoute. Great backround material for anyone who engages in debate with a Muslim.
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Summary: Not taking sufficient Western responsibility
Review: Bernard Lewis's book is an exercise in blameshifting away from the West and towards the Middle East. He rightly points out Arab responsibility in reaching the current situation, but uses his substantial knowledge to understate the importance and influence of the West in shaping the current and recent political make-up of the region. His description of religious rigidity is overexaggerated and he seems unaware both of the substantial amount of critical Islamic scholars present in the Middle East and the limited influence of religious law in practice in most 'Islamic' countries. His regular thesis of Arab 'rage' and disappointment over lost status is part of an easy thesis that tries to partially simplify the Middle East-West tension to hysterical psychological undervelopment on the part of the Arabs. For people interested in finding out about violent forms of minority muslim fundamentalism, this is a particular bad read.
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Summary: Bernard Lewis Does It Again
Review: What Went Wrong provides us enlightenment and understanding, (but surely little comfort.) Dr. Lewis' summary account of the history and tenets of Islamism,and the background historic hostility to what we call tolerance is information packed while crisply written. This is not feel good history. One comes away from the readings with a clear appreciation of what is at the root of this Middle East/Southeast terror and huge gratitude to Princeton's Dr. Lewis for using his extraordinary teaching skills to help us nonacademics understand what is really going on. I bought a dozen copies to share with friends.I hope others do. This is "must have" knowledge.
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Summary: A Collision Course Between Two Civilizations
Review: Bernard Lewis has spent more than half a century studying Islam, and his erudition makes this a particularly worthwhile book at a time when Islamic and Western Civilizations appear to be on a collision course. For its first 900 years, Islamic Civilization was on an incredible winning streak. The First Crusade was a victory for the West -- but it was all too short-lived. Then came Lepanto and the Siege of Malta, and crushing defeats at the hands of the Austrians and Hungarians. The tide was turned, and the Turks and their subject peoples were nonplussed. Lewis shows that there have been two conflicting responses in the Muslim world to its reduced circumstances. The Turks by and large have attempted to understand the West, and at times were way off the mark. Lewis quotes one Turkish traveler as saying the Austrian emperor was polite and deferential toward ladies because of the Virgin Mary! The other response is what we are encountering now: namely, Islamic fundamentalism. Many Muslims see their recent defeats as the result of insufficient attention to the old ways. The mullahs that taught the al-Qaeda terrorists emphasized study of the Koran and rejection of all Western elements in their society, except what was absolutely required to defeat the infidels. In Islamic society, as Lewis points out, there is no secularism. All government, all trade, all interactions are dictated by the Koran. The only exception seems to be Turkey, which has benefited from the reforms of Kemal Ataturk. In his THE COMING ANARCHY, Robert Kaplan indicates that, alone among the Muslim nations, Turkey appears to be stable and viable enough to last out the coming storm. This is a short book, but one that will make you stop and think. I also recommend that, if you like it, you look at some other of Lewis's work, including THE ARABS IN HISTORY.
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