From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East

Description

Bernard Lewis 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. Includes discussion of the problems of Western historians dealing with the Islamic world.

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 books 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.