Rating: 
Summary: A book that tries to do too much.
Review: Dr. Lewis is capable of wonderful writing, e.g. the introduction to this book. He impresses me as learned and objective, and is selective in his details. Yet I was somewhat disappointed. Lewis needed to be more selective not just in detail, but in what he was trying to accomplish. While there is some fascinating material, there isn't enough. Personally, I was hoping for more of a book about issues, rather than about subjects: such issues as why the Middle East fell so far behind the West, why the woman's role is so circumscribed, etc. Lewis address these, but rather briefly and not very effectively.
Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding history lesson
Review: For people not well versed in the history of the Middle East (and there are many of us in the West), this book is an outstanding introduction to the topic. Bernard Lewis gives readers an overview of the region from the days before Islam up to the end of the 20th century. He presents excellent details without resulting in an excessively long book. Perhaps best of all, the book is completely free of any ideological bias. It is simply a recitation of history as pure fact, with appropriate analysis where helpful. It is difficult to imagine that there is a better book out there on this subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good overview, however
Review: I can't imagine a newbie to Middle East History picking this book up fresh and grasping the depths of its contents. This is NOT an introduction. Concepts and words are introduced, loosely defined, and left to the reader to research. If I recall, he doesn't even address the Five Pillars of Islam, and he skips the development of Christianity, and narry a mention of Constantine and his indirect impact on the Mideast (Constantinople, the Concil of Nicea that led to the isolation of Rome from Mid-east Christianity...although Lewis obviously addresses the Byzantine empire). To a college freshmen, this book would go over his head. That's not to say it shouldn't be read, eventually, it should--but go elsewhere first and then let Lewis put it all together for you. His emphasis seems to be the crest of Islamic history, from its humble beginnings to its artistic and cultural achievements during the Baghdad era to its economic/scientific stagnation and cultural battle w/ the West today. Also, it's over ten years old, ends w/ the Jordan-Israeli peace agreement, and sorely needs an update considering what has happened since Rabin's assassination.
The opening chapters are the most strongest, and Lewis brings insights into the development of Islam that even the most seasoned layman historian has overlooked. His analysis of pre-Islam Arabia, its economy and imperial conflict, is first rate. The cross sections in the middle of the book about Ottoman Gov't and the Ulemma are for the more serious students. The modern-history chapters are weaker only because they move by so quickly and so much gets left out. This is a book everyone should eventually read, but don't burden yourself w/ it until you have a mastery of the basics.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly boring book from such a good author
Review: I had high hopes when I started this book for several reasons. I really respect this author's perspectives. (Eleven years ago I read his article in the Atlantic, "The Roots of Muslim Rage", which helped shape my thinking about the Arab world ever since.) I enjoy large sweeping history books and I am interested in learning about the Middle East. So, I thought Lewis's overview of Middle East history would be a worthwhile read. It wasn't. Important events are described with too little detail and too quickly to have much lasting impact on the memory. This is not how history should be written. Recently, I read two other history books covering very long time periods. One was Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger, which deals with the relations of the great powers from the Treaty of Westphalia through the end of the Cold War. That author does not merely list events, but rather explains the importance of events and why things happened as they did. The other sweeping history book was The Civilization of the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor, which is about the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Like Kissinger's book and unlike Lewis's, Cantor explains events, so after reading the book you feel as if you have just completed a college course. (Another way to make history come alive is to include interesting details, such as biographical information about historical actors. In this book Lewis doesn't include do a lot of this either.) When I finished Lewis' book I had only a cursory knowledge of the broadest outlines of Middle East history because much of the information I read was forgotten as soon as I read it. The book was simply too short. Look to Lewis's other works for a more enlightening read. I will.
Rating:
Summary: Unfocused Attempt at a Cultural Synthesis
Review: I have no criticism of Bernard Lewis as a historian, because he has clearly earned his stripes in that department. The problem is with this book's lack of focus and organization. In the preface, Lewis claims that everyone else has adequately written on the political and military sides of Middle Eastern history, so he has decided to focus more on social, cultural, and religious history with this book. Unfortunately, this attempt is damaged by the lack of a focused agenda in the book; while the attempt to cover 2000 years of history quickly does not lead to a handy one-volume compendium (Lewis' likely goal), but a rushed narrative with many holes in it. You can see the major problem by looking at the three major sections into which the book is divided. Parts I, II, and III are straight history with a religious and cultural background, including some valuable insights into basic Islam, and this portion of the book actually works quite well. This portion's focus can be seen in self-explanatory chapter titles like "The 'Abassid Caliphate" or "The Mongol Aftermath." But at the end of Part III, the narrative ends abruptly sometime in the 1600's, when nothing particularly earthshaking happened, and the book suddenly changes to a new focus. Part IV is called "Cross-Sections" with separate chapters focusing on "The State," "The Economy" and the like. This social information is certainly useful but the abruptly shifting focus of the book is quite distracting. With Part V the historical narrative picks up again, but in a far different fashion than earlier. Now we have a very weak social history, not focusing on politics or even a straight sequence of events. The weak chapter titles here like "Challenge" and "Change" indicate the departure from the focused history of the earlier portion of the book. The final chapters gloss over important recent events very quickly (especially the conflicts with Israel and the Persian Gulf War), using events merely as a backdrop to an attempted synthesis of cultural and social trends. Unfortunately, I fear that this is not really Lewis' specialty. With his knowledge and experience, Lewis could certainly create a gigantic history of the Middle East in which all sequential events as well as culture and society could be covered in detail. Such a work would take forever to tackle, but it would certainly be more focused and enlightening than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful survey, deeply considered & articulately expressed
Review: I have willfully avoided reading any of Lewis' works because of his popularity. The mistake and loss were mine, but are mine no more. After an engaging preview in the introduction, the first 132 pages of "The Middle East" is a recap of history, from Nile to Oxus and from AD 1 to 1700 where he highlights precedents for current characteristics. The Caliphate's expansion was aided by peoples people "long subject to the Persian and Byzantine Empires [who] exchanged one imperial domination for another and found their new masters less demanding, more tolerant, and above all more welcoming than the old." The middle third of the book is a collection of cross-sectional essays on the state; the economy; elites; the commonality; religion and law; and culture. Agriculture & stock raising were economically in different hands, hence the persistence of nomads. Poets were PR people for rulers, even composing 'jingles.' Compared to the West, there was a lack of doctrinal differences or strife, an absence of persecution of heretics or unbelievers. "Muslims... [created] a religious civilization beyond the limits of a single race or religion or culture. The Islamic world in the High Middle Ages was international, multi-racial, polyethnic. one might even say intercontinental." In the 15th and 16th centuries, refugees voted with their feet from West to East. "[E]ven at the beginning of the 19th century a poor man of humble origin had a better chance of attaining to wealth, power and dignity in the Ottoman Empire than in any of the states of Christian Europe, including post-Revolutionary France." The section on religion and law is especially illuminating in its comparison of political law as a supplement to the Shari'a and in its explanation of how custom, regulations, and interpretations were used to disguise new laws. The final part of the book summarizes Middle Eastern history from 1683 to 1994. The author's analysis of the Ottoman state is the best I've ever seen, from the organizational roots of success, through the seeds of relaxed complacence at the height of its success to its collapse, which he compares and contrasts to the Soviet collapse. The alienation of landholdings, then governorships, is well covered, as is deindustrialization. I'll have to get his book on the Ottomans. Lewis' discussion of patriotism and nationalism is thought-provoking, as is one on the impact of liberty, equality and fraternity. The last chapter reveals the only significant weakness of the book: Lewis fails to distinguish Modernity from The West. He uses the terms modern and West interchangeably, not appreciating a point that Huntington, for one, makes theoretically in "Clash of Civilizations," and that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan make in practice. The author also understates the client-patron nature of the Egyptian, Israeli, Lebanese, Jordanian, Iraqi (formerly), and Saudi regimes, among others. Though there are a couple of spell-check typos (attached instead of attacked, founts instead of fonts), there are many delights in Lewis' command of language, and not just English. The depth of his knowledge shines through everywhere. It may aggravate some, but I especially delighted in his use of 'fora' as plural of the noun 'forum.' His word choices are true, and his phrasings in places approach the elegance and wry wit of Will and Ariel Durant. For instance, "even the pettiest of modern dictators has greater control than even the mightiest of Arab caliphs Persian shahs, and Turkish sultans. The traditional restraints on tyranny have gone. The search for some new or renewed form of limitation continues." The neologismic nature of country names are explored. He even has a couple of satirical excerpts that had me tearing up with laughter. And I had to go to the dictionary to look up 'calque' (a copy). All in all, I found this an informative easily read book that left me wanting more. It's time to add to my wish list.
Rating:
Summary: not for unbiased beginners
Review: I picked up this book because it was the only one at Borders that seemed to be "history" on a larger perspective than the past hundred years or history since the dawn of Islam. Unfortunately, I had very little prior knowledge of the area and the people, so a lot of things he talks about that many would take for granted and maybe get something out of - left me clueless (computer teacher: pick up your mouse - nubee student: what's a mouse?) Going back now and looking at it after having acquainted myself through some other books (War without End by La Guardia is nice, and is rather unbiased - it seems rather pro-Israeli at first, but if you keep reading, you find a gem of a book) (not that I'm anti-Israeli - I just mean to imply it's an unbiased look at the Israeli-Palestinian question, which, eventually, evelopes a whole study of southwest Asia). As far as this authors particular bias, and especially in regards to this book, I don't know enough to detect a lot of it in the ideas of earlier time, because I haven't read enough to compare it, and I haven't gotten to the end, so I don't know how he views the modern shape of things. And they wouldn't be very modern - this book came out in 1995, the year in which a majority of the events in Baer's See no Evil take place. Matter of fact, read that one first - it reads quickly and gives an introduction to things - keep Dilip Hiro's "Essential Middle East" by your side for referrence. Then come back to Amazon and look up the titles you see at your book store, and see who likes it, who doesn't, and what gets recommended instead. 2 stars for this book - it's hard to get through if your new, and I recommended three other books in this review.
Rating:
Summary: not for unbiased beginners
Review: I picked up this book because it was the only one at Borders that seemed to be "history" on a larger perspective than the past hundred years or history since the dawn of Islam. Unfortunately, I had very little prior knowledge of the area and the people, so a lot of things he talks about that many would take for granted and maybe get something out of - left me clueless (computer teacher: pick up your mouse - nubee student: what's a mouse?) Going back now and looking at it after having acquainted myself through some other books (War without End by La Guardia is nice, and is rather unbiased - it seems rather pro-Israeli at first, but if you keep reading, you find a gem of a book) (not that I'm anti-Israeli - I just mean to imply it's an unbiased look at the Israeli-Palestinian question, which, eventually, evelopes a whole study of southwest Asia). As far as this authors particular bias, and especially in regards to this book, I don't know enough to detect a lot of it in the ideas of earlier time, because I haven't read enough to compare it, and I haven't gotten to the end, so I don't know how he views the modern shape of things. And they wouldn't be very modern - this book came out in 1995, the year in which a majority of the events in Baer's See no Evil take place. Matter of fact, read that one first - it reads quickly and gives an introduction to things - keep Dilip Hiro's "Essential Middle East" by your side for referrence. Then come back to Amazon and look up the titles you see at your book store, and see who likes it, who doesn't, and what gets recommended instead. 2 stars for this book - it's hard to get through if your new, and I recommended three other books in this review.
Rating:
Summary: A good Short history of the Middle East and Islam
Review: I've been listening a lot to the radio since September 11, and there have been many journalists, diplomats, clerics, and academics on the air trying to explain Islam and the Middle East to us. One of the more interesting personalities doing this is a Professor of Near East studies at Princeton named Bernard Lewis, who's apparently of British extraction but has taught in New Jersey for more than 30 years. He's written a number of books on the region, and this one is sort of an overview of his work, near as I can tell. He also did a two-volume history covering only part of the period in this book; for those brave enough, perhaps that will provide the necessary detail. Lewis is a renaissance man as a historian: once on NPR, he spent the whole half hour reciting poetry from the Middle East, to illustrate how artistic and sensitive Muslims can be. He obviously has an affinity for the region and the people. He also has considerable skill as a writer, making even things like literature and art interesting to someone like me, a military historian who's not real interested in anything outside of the diplomatic/military side of things. I was highly impressed with the book's readability. The book is divided into several parts, but really there are four segments. The first is the pre-Islam period, the second early Islam, the third is an overview of Islamic society and culture that's not chronological, and lastly there's a chapter on modern times. The last two are the longest. Much of the book is narrative history, but the author doesn't get bogged down with the succession of caliphs or shahs, he instead informs you of trends and developments, doing a marvelous job of describing how things came out the way they did. One of the most significant things was the explanation of why Muslims have such a problem relating to Western governments: they not only don't have a tradition of separation of Church and State like ours, they don't even have a Church, in our sense of the word, at all. Instead, traditionally, the leader of the government is overtly religious, and rules as a Muslim. All who follow other approved religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in the east) are allowed to practice their faith, provided they accept second-class citizen status, and pay a special tax. Everyone else (atheists and various pagans, Buddhists, etc.) gets three choices: slavery, conversion, or death. The whole country is overtly religious, everyone is expected to attend prayers, study the Koran, etc., and anyone who is able may lead prayers in the church. Since there's no formal clergy, someone like Osama bin Laden can be regarded as a holy man, when he went to engineering school. It's all very different. Lewis dispenses all of this painlessly, and discusses at great lengths the interactions of the various religions in the region, and also the various peoples. This is a worthwhile book, and I would highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Fine, readable overview
Review: I've recently had the pleasure of reading another Bernard Lewis work. The Middle East is his sweeping overview of that troubled region. Readers of his other books, such as What Went Wrong or Crisis of Islam will recognize some familiar discussions in here, but Lewis also gives a broader history, followed by a series of topical chapters about aspects of Middle Eastern life. I'd thought that this was more of a narrative history, which it isn't, but was still satisfied with what I received. Some features I particularly enjoyed were his discussion on Ottoman and Modern eras (his specialty is Ottoman history, so this is no surprise), and his discussion of contemporary issues, even if these last overlap some of Crisis of Islam. As usual, Lewis writes in a lucid and familiar style, and the text is a pleasure. As usual, I feel the need to address some issues that seem to surround Bernard Lewis's books. I won't launch an attack here on the parties responsible, but it gets clearer to me with each Lewis book I read that he is a fan of Middle Eastern History, and though he can go on at great length about why and how it has fallen from its Medieval heights, he does not consider this a joyous thing worthy of celebrating. Perhaps some people don't like even having Lewis or others point out that there are problems in the Middle East. I suspect, from the tone and content of this and other books, that Lewis would be happy to see the countries of the Middle East solve their many problems. So, for a good, detailed, honest, and Respectful discussion of Middle Eastern history and culture, this book is a fine choice.
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