Monday, May 10, 2004
I can resist buying many things, such as shoes, club shirts and pretty much anything else. I cannot, however, resist buying books. My last two purchases are Colossus by Niall Fergusson and From Babel to Dragomans by Bernard Lewis., have cost me a cool $60 total. I could have waited till they come out in paperback, but the marginal utility of doing that was outweighed by my interest in the subject matter. And so, I bought ‘em.
I started the Lewis book five days ago and I am already 135 pages into it. It is really quite good. It so happens that the Middle East/Mesopotamia/Eastern Mediterranean is an extremely interesting region that has not only given birth to civilization as we know it but also to the three Abrahamic religions, vast amount of learning, multiple empires and sundry other polities, ideas and events that have had repercussions far beyond the borders of the region. As I said in one of my previous posts, there are very few historians and anthropologists today that can write about the region in question without succumbing to hysteria symptomatic of much of the post-9/11 output and without taking a political viewpoint in the process. Lewis can. Some reviews of his book label him as just another Euro-centric westerner who is propagating the same biased ideas that pervaded West since times immemorial. I disagree. In this book in question, the author takes utmost consideration not to offend Islamic sensibilities but serves the information straight, without any prevarication. The book itself is devoted to the perception of Islam by others, mainly Europe. It is a fascinating topic because for more that a thousand years, Islam was the ultimate Other. It was different, it was threatening and it was alluring at the same time. Lewis, through this collection of essays, talks and articles from his long scholarly career, attempts to shed light on the issue and does quite a job. Another author who I would recommend to anyone who is puzzled by the fact many if not most terror organizations operating today claim to be a part of some jihad or other is Gilles Kepel. He is a French professor and journalist and his book The Trail of Political Islam is key to understanding the roots of the current terror problem plaguing the world. But back to Lewis. He discusses Islamic property laws, court poets, land grants, conflicting dynasties – I don’t know why, but I find this very interesting. Hence, this book was a very VERY good purchase.
I started the Lewis book five days ago and I am already 135 pages into it. It is really quite good. It so happens that the Middle East/Mesopotamia/Eastern Mediterranean is an extremely interesting region that has not only given birth to civilization as we know it but also to the three Abrahamic religions, vast amount of learning, multiple empires and sundry other polities, ideas and events that have had repercussions far beyond the borders of the region. As I said in one of my previous posts, there are very few historians and anthropologists today that can write about the region in question without succumbing to hysteria symptomatic of much of the post-9/11 output and without taking a political viewpoint in the process. Lewis can. Some reviews of his book label him as just another Euro-centric westerner who is propagating the same biased ideas that pervaded West since times immemorial. I disagree. In this book in question, the author takes utmost consideration not to offend Islamic sensibilities but serves the information straight, without any prevarication. The book itself is devoted to the perception of Islam by others, mainly Europe. It is a fascinating topic because for more that a thousand years, Islam was the ultimate Other. It was different, it was threatening and it was alluring at the same time. Lewis, through this collection of essays, talks and articles from his long scholarly career, attempts to shed light on the issue and does quite a job. Another author who I would recommend to anyone who is puzzled by the fact many if not most terror organizations operating today claim to be a part of some jihad or other is Gilles Kepel. He is a French professor and journalist and his book The Trail of Political Islam is key to understanding the roots of the current terror problem plaguing the world. But back to Lewis. He discusses Islamic property laws, court poets, land grants, conflicting dynasties – I don’t know why, but I find this very interesting. Hence, this book was a very VERY good purchase.
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