Rating: 
Summary: Good, but does not directly answer the main question
Review: Many other reviewers have pointed out both the high points and the shortcomings of this book. Overall, it's a worthwhile read, but it's biggest drawback it that doesn't answer "what went wrong" directly. Now, if we were students in Dr. Lewis' class, where we could engage in Socratic dialecticism, that approach might be appropriate. But we're readers paying ten bucks for his book, and it's not too much to request that it address and answer the central issue. My own conclusion (arrived at only after gleaning the information from the book) is that Mohamadism has fallen behind because of its combined religious-state-military nature, which allowed it to be too self-contained, combined with a contempt for religions seen as corrupted, precursory or inferior.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Ottoman history
Review: I can consider this book to be objective enough on Ottoman history which one cannot find in Turkey and not easy in western world. But i believe that the things were not right for Islam even before Ottomans started their enterprise. Islam stopped its development around 1000-1100-1200 which was not felt in Islamic societies that much because there was no power to compete with Islamic empires at the time. After that it was a stasis for the world. So the question is right but the answer is not in the Ottoman history. Last note is that If you are looking a thorough work on Turkish history read the emergence of Modern Turkey. This book has a lot of repeated information from that book.
Rating:
Summary: A Decent Historical Account
Review: In this book Lewis offers a historical account of the interaction between Muslim and western cultures from a Muslim perspective. Most of the book consists of a detailed account of the Ottoman Empire throughout the ages and its response to a real and growing economic, military and cultural gap between the Empire and its western rivals. The book is very informative and mildly enjoyable, however as others have pointed out, it does not even attempt to answer the question raised in the title. Lewis takes a descriptive approach, describing the long and slow deterioration of Muslim civilization, but he does very little to explain the ultimate causes for this deterioration. Why is it that the Muslim world began its decline in the first place? The book provides no insight on the subject. Having said all this, the book is well researched, informative and is a good primer for anyone not too familiar with the history and culture of the Middle East.
Rating: 
Summary: This book went wrong
Review: There is no doubt that Lewis is an expert in oriental history and culture. His many books attest to that. There is no doubt that he assembled many facts for the writing of this book. The extensive list of notes attests to that. He mentions the opening of the seaway around Cape Horn in the 16th century as a decisive factor in the downward spiral of the Ottoman empire. The discovery of the New World destroyed the market for some of the Middle East goods. Land was lost, mostly to Russia. The Ottomans refused to learn from the West, fell hopelessly behind, and had their empire dissolve in 1920. So - what went wrong? The author does not tell us. I expected a treatise on Islam versus Christianity, of the Middle East versus the West. Instead I get a long discussion on the introduction of watches and clocks in Egypt and Turkey. The subtitle of the book is "Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response". The impact is obvious - the Ottoman empire no longer exists. And the response seems to be that there was none. The book seems to be an accumulation of articles on different subjects that do not get us to where we wanted to go.
Rating: 
Summary: Uneven, but packed with incredible insight
Review: I can see why Bernard Lewis is considered one of the top thinkers on the Middle East. He does an excellent job of tracing how the Arab world stagnated and thus remains the only culture without a functioning democracy. Since it is short, don't expect full-blown academic discourse. Instead, you'll get a nice overview of the forces that have led the Islamic world to fall far behind the West. Interesting to note that as I read Lewis' book, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the Arab world and the Southren Confederacy. It made me see the Civil War as the last gasp of a dying culture. In that vein, Radical Islam is in its last gasps. Although uneven in spots, I'd say this is a must read for anyone looking for intelligent thought about the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: Why all the editorial vitriol?
Review: After reading some of the low rated reviews for What Went Wrong?, it seemed like the book was a polemical rant against Islam. After reading some of the high rated reviews, it seemed like the book might be a brutal and strident criticism of the failure of the middle east. Naturally I bought the book, but found neither. What I did find was a fairly scholarly review. I think that the title would have been more illustrative without the question mark, since the reader is given more of a compare and contrast style of essay rather than a probing analysis. Anyone who expected great levels of detail and massive amounts of information should note that the book is only a hundred ninety two pages and measures about eight and a half by six inches. This is not a long text. The detail is there, but is limited in volume. I've not read anything else by Lewis, so I don't know if this is his best work. Some reviewers have said it is not. The first three chapters are from a specific set of lectures, and the rest is based on other earlier works. The difference actually does show up in the style, with the first three chapters staying closest to the title of the book. Later chapters tend to meander a bit. But what they do not do is withhold useful and interesting information. If this is your first book on the middle eastern world (expect heavy emphasis on the Ottoman empire), as it was for me, then you will be treated to a fairly complete picture of how it differed from the West. The scope is historical and topical, not following a set chronology, but emphasizing events between five hundred and one hundred years ago. Ignore the reviews that accuse Lewis of muslim bashing. He is obviously fond of his subject, but he can honestly critisize it. I must say that I'm surprised at the emotion raging in this forum over a book that says rather little, until the last ten pages, about events within the last hundred years. Is it because Lewis does not kiss the butt of the Islamic world? Books about Russian history by western authors can be critical and brutally honest about the Soviet Union without inducing the ire of the world's Slavic populations. Ditto for Germany and the Third Reich. Could it be that some people out there are just a bit sensitive about contemporary politics? This is a scholarly work, however short it may be. Its greatest fault is a somewhat unconnected narrative, as I've mentioned. It shouldn't be this controversial. I personally was hoping for something harsh, but what I found was better. I found intelligent, accurate, insightful analysis by someone who cares about his field.
Rating:
Summary: The Question is Still Unanswered
Review: Bernard Lewis is a noted expert on Middle Eastern affairs, however, this book was disappointing. The author never fully answers the question posed in the title and instead discusses several economic, social, and cultural shortcomings in Middle Eastern culture vis a vis Western culture. Overall, the book is really more of a series of these discussions than a coherent response to the question posed in the title.
Rating:
Summary: Makes many little observations; misses one huge one
Review: It's strange that such an eminent authority on history can become so lost when considering the history of ideas. Lewis mentions many tangential issues as possibly contributing to the decline of the once great Islamic civilization, from sexism (as though the West never had that) to timekeeping to Western classical music. Yet he never mentions a key idea that explains so much of Islamic intellectual history -- ijtihad, the reasoned interpretation of Islamic law to cover modern situations. When the gate of ijtihad was open, as Muslims put it, Islamic civilization flourished. The closing of that gate has been considered the beginning of the end. Yet Lewis never mentions it. He seems almost as lost with regard to the history of ideas in the West. Twice he says that the French Revolution was the first major movement of ideas in the West that was expicitly non-Christian. What does he make of the Enlightenment?
Rating: 
Summary: Will not answer your questions... or earn its title
Review: This book is academia's version of the exploitation of our post-9/11 fears that the pulp presses have shamefully demonstrated with their hastily-published grim pictorials of Ground Zero. But the academics want you to believe that they capital-U-understand what has happened, and they will flock to elevate one of their own to that end. I doubt if half of the positive reviews steering this book to best-seller lists actually finished the book. I did, and do not recommend it. (Note, even, how the paperback release has a subtly different subtitle - someone is working hard to "position" this book based on appearance rather than substance). * * * With so many westerners looking for answers as they look to the Middle East and Islam, its no surprise that this book has been well received by many reviewers. Like you, and me, they have been jolted to step back and actually look at a region of the world long consigned to the backwaters of interest by Western intellectual elites. It really is a puzzle, isn't it? How could the empires that we credit with much of our intellectual heritage - empires that were pre-eminent on the globe (excepting perhaps China) for 500 years - how could they have disappeared so completely from the main stage of history? Now, in our time, it has become a truly dangerous puzzle as we view the violent efforts of some to restore the primacy of fundamentalist Islam. What went wrong, indeed; a fascinating and important question upon which Mr. Lewis, the New York Times' "doyen of Middle Eastern studies", ought to have cast some valuable insight. Instead, this book can be added to the shamefully growing stack of publishing industry attempts to cash in on the post-9/11 fears of the West. That the publisher is the esteemed Oxford University Press only demonstrates the more so how difficult the western elites are finding this challenge to be. They have few answers but will smother us with their attempts. "What Went Wrong" is a poorly stitched-together amalgam of ideas large and small - more often the later. Broad themes such as the relative status of women in Christendom and Islam receive merely a wave or two, roughly equivalent in this "analysis" to the differing role of the theater in the two cultures. One comes away thinking that the lack of timepieces in Islamic societies and the lack of perspective in their art might be as important as the role of slavery or the non-Muslim in their worldview. The book provides very little analysis and no perspective. Perhaps Lewis has honestly answered the precise question, "what" went wrong by creating this meandering laundry list of "things that are different between" the two cultures or "ways in which the Middle East did not adopt western modes". Perhaps I was expecting too much in assuming the implicit "why" and "how" in that title. The book ends with an interesting enough chapter entitled "conclusion" - except that it is actually more appropriately an introduction! No pieces of argument are called together to summation. On the contrary, the intriguing questions that might launch our inquiry into the divergence of the two cultures are coherently, if vaguely, stated. Notwithstanding a brief apologia at the beginning noting the book being in "page proof" when the twin towers were felled, it seems obvious that this conclusion was tacked-on after the events of September 11. Only at the last page do you discover a hint of how such an odd book might have come together. An "Afterword" notes that, "the core of this book was a series of three public lectures given at..." Aha! That's what went wrong! Someone seeking post-9/11 "material" realized that three interesting, albeit narrowly academic lectures about the Middle East combining with three hundred million people asking "why?" could hit the charts. Toss in academics and reviewers and so-called intellectual elites anxious to show that they can bring their heretofore invisible abilities to solve "the problem of Islam" and you've got the mixings for a shameful mess. One star for lots of interesting little bits and a few big questions - which someone, hopefully, will take a stab at actually answering someday.
Rating:
Summary: Muslim-bashing, with scholarly embellishments
Review: It is not suprising that "people who bought this book also bought" section lists infamous blatant Muslim-haters, such as Daniel Pipes, who said "enfrienschisement of american Muslims is dangerous for the future of the Jews in America" and went on calling all Muslims enemies, fifth column or the like reminiscent of the Nazi description of the Jews. When one writes a book, or promotes an idea by any means, a critical review usually includes who the author is, what kind of background what kind of biases and agendas he has. If Charleton Heston writes a book on gun control, we would note that he is the president of NRA, thus take his views with that prism in mind. If an Islamic scholar with known symphaties to, e.g. Palestinian cause it would be noted as such, and thus not necessarily an unbiased scientific inquiry. However, there exists this single exception to this rule: when a position is promoted by publishing or in the media by pro-israeli, or zionist entities, we are conditioned to forgo that "who is he, what is his agenda" inquiry. That is certainly the case here. During one of his numerous interviews, on just about every major media outlet, he made his bias very clear when he said: "There are only two reasons while We [the West] cares about the Middle East: Oil and Israel. Once the oil runs out and Israel feels secure, we wiill (or should) leave them to their own devices" (Washington Jornal Interview with Brian Lamb-date unknown).
All the mainstream media and publishing world reviewers urge with a single voice, that "Bernard lewis is the most prominent scholar of Islam". I pose the following rhetorical question: Can they accept any Muslim scholar, let alone an antisemite or anti-chiristian, as the ultimate authority on Judaism or Christianity? There are thousands of Muslim scholars, who would know Islam better than, any Jew, including Bernard Lewis and there are dozens of non-Muslim scholars who approach Islam and The Middle-East without the agenda and biases of Lewis, Pipes and like. Karen Armstrong, John Esposito, Michael Sells, Israel Shamir, Marc Ellis, Naom Chomsky are but a few names, who present "alternative" views thus are not uncritically touted by the media and the publishing world.
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