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The Great Confrontation: Europe and Islam Through the Centuries |
List Price: $26.00
Your Price: $16.38 |
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Reviews |
Description:
Many Americans, including George W. Bush, may trace Islamic jihad against the West only as far back as the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Moscow-based historian and scholar Gaiduk knows better. He's written a summary of 14 centuries of relations between Europe (representing a Christian-dominated civilization with a much longer history than the U.S.) and Islam (more a unifying force culturally than geographically). As Gaiduk makes abundantly clear, both Europe and the Islamic world have justified "holy wars" many times in a seesaw battle for moral superiority that both believed was theirs. As a backdrop to this epic struggle, Gaiduk traces a less well-known history of mutually beneficial trade and cultural exchanges that have punctuated long stretches of this 1,400-year history. It is in these latter examples that Gaiduk sees a model for future relations between Islam and the West, rejecting the more commonly held belief that a "clash of civilizations" is chillingly inevitable. His book-ending prescription of "tolerance and partnership," crossing all man-made boundaries to defeat poverty, terrorism, and pollution, is both sensible and depressingly difficult to imagine. --Keith Moerer
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