Rating: 
Summary: outstanding
Review: Bernard Lewis gives the reader two fascinating trips in this book: one into the world of Islam, and the other into the scope of his scholarship. I can't recommend it enough to those interested in learning more about Islam and the West. And, by the way, his essay on Edward Said is worth the price of the book alone...
Rating: 
Summary: Skilled Writer
Review: Bernard Lewis is a highly skilled writer. But even then his bias against Islam can be spotted and proved from his own writing. Generally, he does not write about the Quran. He writes about muslims. As humans they are full of error, probably more so than others. Arabs, the peoples who were the first to accept Prophet Muhammad's message, have carried out many grievous acts throughout their history against other Arabs some of which go back to within the first hundred years of Prophet Muhammad's death. To learn about muslims, reading Mr. Lewis's books is a start. To learn about the Middle East, one needs to read about the ancient Hebrews(the sister race of the Arabs) and their impact as well.
Rating:
Summary: Top Flight Scholarship
Review: Bernard Lewis is not regarded as the foremost scholar of Middle East for naught. Islam And The West is a serious dissertation not so much of the Muslim culture and Islam faith, which are very large subjects, but how one should even attempt to understand them. This is a short, but very substantial book.The author points out that many popular interpretations and beliefs about Islam, which are common currency in the Christian West, are actually incorrect. Still more notions which are common in the West have no real equivalents in the Islamic paradigm. It is not hard to see, with a deep understanding of the Islam faith and the Muslim culture, that many "commonsense" formulations of, say, the Palestinian solution, simply won't work, or why most people could not comprehend the Islamic Revolution (actions of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers,) or of the Taliban. This is simply because the Islamic faith is not comparable to the Christian or Judaic faith, the Islamic state is not equivalent to the Western state, or any other state, for that matter, and that the Islamic teaching is central and all encompassing to the purpose in life of the "fundamentalist" Muslim. Our faith in such fundamental concepts as patriotism, peaceful co-existence, trade, and a good many others are either non-existent or even forbidden in the Islamic mind. Use of these concepts in formulating political solutions in that part of the world will inevitably fail. Islam And The West is a must-read for politicians, journalists, scholars and ordinary Joes like myself, who have a serious interest in the Middle East issues. Besides the high quality of the studies presented, Bernard Lewis's writing style, especially with his careful choice of words, and elegantly crafted sentences, surely has helped make this book a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Top Flight Scholarship
Review: Bernard Lewis is not regarded as the foremost scholar of Middle East for naught. Islam And The West is a serious dissertation not so much of the Muslim culture and Islam faith, which are very large subjects, but how one should even attempt to understand them. This is a short, but very substantial book. The author points out that many popular interpretations and beliefs about Islam, which are common currency in the Christian West, are actually incorrect. Still more notions which are common in the West have no real equivalents in the Islamic paradigm. It is not hard to see, with a deep understanding of the Islam faith and the Muslim culture, that many "commonsense" formulations of, say, the Palestinian solution, simply won't work, or why most people could not comprehend the Islamic Revolution (actions of the Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers,) or of the Taliban. This is simply because the Islamic faith is not comparable to the Christian or Judaic faith, the Islamic state is not equivalent to the Western state, or any other state, for that matter, and that the Islamic teaching is central and all encompassing to the purpose in life of the "fundamentalist" Muslim. Our faith in such fundamental concepts as patriotism, peaceful co-existence, trade, and a good many others are either non-existent or even forbidden in the Islamic mind. Use of these concepts in formulating political solutions in that part of the world will inevitably fail. Islam And The West is a must-read for politicians, journalists, scholars and ordinary Joes like myself, who have a serious interest in the Middle East issues. Besides the high quality of the studies presented, Bernard Lewis's writing style, especially with his careful choice of words, and elegantly crafted sentences, surely has helped make this book a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Great study of issues and ideas in the Islamic world
Review: Bernard Lewis's book is alternately fascinating and frustrating. If you come to it expecting either a history of the relationship between the Islamic and Western worlds, or an analysis of their relationship in recent decades, you will be disappointed. The book consists, rather, of essays dealing with various issues in Islamic-Western relations, such as problems in translating Arabic texts into European languages, the idea of country and patriotism in the Islamic world, and disputes between scholars of Middle Eastern studies. Despite the somewhat esoteric topics, however, the book is not just for scholars. Lewis's breadth of knowledge, and a writing style much more interesting than that of most academics, makes this book intriguing reading for almost anyone with an interest in Islam and the Middle East. I picked up many intriguing facts and anecdotes from the book. But it's not perfect. For me, the problem in Bernard Lewis's approach is summed up in one of the book's first essays -- on Muslims living in non-Muslim countries. Lewis offers a fascinating study of what various Muslim scholars have said over the centuries about the theological implications of Muslims living under the laws of non-Muslims. Then he admits that the average Muslim probably has little or no knowledge of these theological debates and it is uncertain what effect these ideas have on how real people live their lives. He insists, though, that they must have some effect, and in any case, how can we find out any information about religious ideas except by listening to religious scholars? That's pretty much like saying that papal pronouncements are the only knowledge we can have of what Catholics think. Scholarly and theological debates are interesting, but how religious ideas effect people's lives is even more so -- and that area is not only beyond the scope of Lewis's work (which is understandable), but is something that he writes off as irrelevant and unknowable (which is absurd). And for me, this limitation is a problem throughout the book. Lewis is a marvelous and almost always interesting scholar when he is discussing the history of ideas. But he repeatedly jumps to the conclusion that those ideas filter down to ordinary people's lives with little change. It would be far more interesting, and relevant to the general reader, I think, to see how those ideas play out in the real world.
Rating: 
Summary: Disjointed, but some interesting insights
Review: Bernard Lewis, of course, is the well-known Princeton professor (emeritus) who emerged, after 9/11, as the principal "interpreter" of the world of Islam for U.S. audiences. In the introduction to this book, he proposes that he will illustrate the way that the worlds of Christendom and Islam view each other. Unfortunately, as noted by the previous reviewers, this is a collection of essays (several of which were previously published) rather than a de novo work, and the individual parts are only variably subordinate to the overarching goal. Despite this limitation, which gives the book a disjointed feel, there are some valuable insights here. The first essay is a very brief review of the history of the interaction between Islam and Christendom, which makes the important point that, for much of the history of that interaction, the European kingdoms were of only peripheral interest to the vastly greater civilization of Islam. Subsequent essays briefly review the history of the Shi'a, and the problems of cross-cultural communication illustrated by the difficulties encountered in attempting translation of Islamic texts. There are effective critiques of the late Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, which claims that the study of non-Western, and particularly Islamic, history by Westerners constitutes cultural imperialism masquerading as historical analysis. But the most useful insight to be gleaned from these essays is the explication of the role that religion plays in the world of Islam, and the contrast between Islamic and non-Islamic views of the proper relation between religion and the State. Although we are slowly becoming more aware of this fundamental difference between our own view of the place of religion in the affairs of man and that of many, perhaps most, in the Islamic world, Lewis manages to make this difference explicitly clear. The insight would be most valuable to those seeking to build new polities in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: Disjointed, but some interesting insights
Review: Bernard Lewis, of course, is the well-known Princeton professor (emeritus) who emerged, after 9/11, as the principal "interpreter" of the world of Islam for U.S. audiences. In the introduction to this book, he proposes that he will illustrate the way that the worlds of Christendom and Islam view each other. Unfortunately, as noted by the previous reviewers, this is a collection of essays (several of which were previously published) rather than a de novo work, and the individual parts are only variably subordinate to the overarching goal. Despite this limitation, which gives the book a disjointed feel, there are some valuable insights here. The first essay is a very brief review of the history of the interaction between Islam and Christendom, which makes the important point that, for much of the history of that interaction, the European kingdoms were of only peripheral interest to the vastly greater civilization of Islam. Subsequent essays briefly review the history of the Shi'a, and the problems of cross-cultural communication illustrated by the difficulties encountered in attempting translation of Islamic texts. There are effective critiques of the late Edward Said's theory of Orientalism, which claims that the study of non-Western, and particularly Islamic, history by Westerners constitutes cultural imperialism masquerading as historical analysis. But the most useful insight to be gleaned from these essays is the explication of the role that religion plays in the world of Islam, and the contrast between Islamic and non-Islamic views of the proper relation between religion and the State. Although we are slowly becoming more aware of this fundamental difference between our own view of the place of religion in the affairs of man and that of many, perhaps most, in the Islamic world, Lewis manages to make this difference explicitly clear. The insight would be most valuable to those seeking to build new polities in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: A Scholarly Collection of Fine Essays
Review: Bernard Lewis, perhaps the top historian of the Middle East, creates another gem here. It is not a book so much as a collection of essays on a wide variety of topics. Perhaps the most interesting is his excellent critique of Edward Said and other post-Modernists whose criticisms of Western scholars are shown to be hypocritical and false. Having established that scholars not born in the Middle East can understand it, Lewis then delves into that subject. He starts with a well-regarded essay about the past history between the West and Islam, dating back to the invasion of Spain by the Moors. A must read for any serious student of Middle East history.
Rating:
Summary: Short but facinating work
Review: Bernard Lewis, the dean of Middle East scholars, has been much lambasted by people like Edward Said, who have pummeled him with all manner of polemics. None of that caterwauling masqueraded as debate has removed Lewis from his throne as the leading living Middle East scholar. What makes Lewis such a marvel is that, in a field beset with politics, he neither seeks to eviscerate nor canonize his subject. Here is a man who loves Arab culture and Arabic, but is capable of insightful commentary and analysis.
Lewis' work on how Islam and "the west" encountered each other, defined themselves as being in opposite of the "other," and the conflicts that arose is still the standard. Even more enjoyable, Lewis writes with a wonderful readable style and presents the information in an accessible way. I highly recommend this book and, if you like it, you should pick up his other classic, Middle East and the west. 2
Rating:
Summary: short but facinating work
Review: Bernard Lewis, the dean of Middle East scholars, has been much lambasted by people like Edward Said, who have pummeled him with
all manner of polemics. None of that caterwauling masqueraded as debate has removed Lewis from his throne as the leading living
Middle East scholar. What makes Lewis such a marvel is that, in a field beset with politics, he neither seeks to eviscerate nor canonize his
subject. Here is a man who loves Arab culture and Arabic, but is capable of insightful commentary and analysis.
Lewis' work on how Islam and "the west" encountered each other, defined themselves as being in opposite of the "other," and the
conflicts that arose is still the standard. Even more enjoyable, Lewis writes with a wonderful readable style and presents the information in
an accessible way. I highly recommend this book and, if you like it, you should pick up his other classic, Middle East and the west.
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