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Audiobook4 hours
The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
In his first book since What Went Wrong? Bernard Lewis examines the historical roots of the resentments that dominate the Islamic world today and that are increasingly being expressed in acts of terrorism. He looks at the theological origins of political Islam and takes us through the rise of militant Islam in Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, examining the impact of radical Wahhabi proselytizing, and Saudi oil money, on the rest of the Islamic world.
The Crisis of Islam ranges widely through thirteen centuries of history, but in particular it charts the key events of the twentieth century leading up to the violent confrontations of today: the creation of the state of Israel, the Cold War, the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the September 11th attacks on the United States.
While hostility toward the West has a long and varied history in the lands of Islam, its current concentration on America is new. So too is the cult of the suicide bomber. Brilliantly disentangling the crosscurrents of Middle Eastern history from the rhetoric of its manipulators, Bernard Lewis helps us understand the reasons for the increasingly dogmatic rejection of modernity by many in the Muslim world in favor of a return to a sacred past. Based on his George Polk Award-winning article for The New Yorker, The Crisis of Islam is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what Usama bin Ladin represents and why his murderous message resonates so widely in the Islamic world.
The Crisis of Islam ranges widely through thirteen centuries of history, but in particular it charts the key events of the twentieth century leading up to the violent confrontations of today: the creation of the state of Israel, the Cold War, the Iranian Revolution, the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the September 11th attacks on the United States.
While hostility toward the West has a long and varied history in the lands of Islam, its current concentration on America is new. So too is the cult of the suicide bomber. Brilliantly disentangling the crosscurrents of Middle Eastern history from the rhetoric of its manipulators, Bernard Lewis helps us understand the reasons for the increasingly dogmatic rejection of modernity by many in the Muslim world in favor of a return to a sacred past. Based on his George Polk Award-winning article for The New Yorker, The Crisis of Islam is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what Usama bin Ladin represents and why his murderous message resonates so widely in the Islamic world.
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Reviews for The Crisis of Islam
Rating: 3.4475138475138127 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
181 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bernard Lewis was one of the most prominent exprrts/scholars on Islam. This book is a book written for a wider public, and explains things in an easy manner. I have read most of Lewis's books. This one is the one I will advice my friends to read as a primer.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This work takes an excessively academic and abstract view of war and violence in the Middle East - leaving a feeling of lots of research with little substance. The historical discussion is well done, but the reader isn't really left with any true lessons or morals to take away at the end of the work. The last chapter is particularly frustrating, and seems more of a rationale for invasion than anything else.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Bigoted; fraudulent; dangerous; wrong.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The subject sounded promising, but the actual result was a boring, detailed account. The historical view was wound up like a boring college history lesson; unfamiliar names and places with zero motivation to listen. Perhaps better to read than to listen to. The author reads like a prepared speech and speaks very fast with a British accent devoid of the letter "R". Not my kind of book. DNF.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Very disappointing. Bernard Lewis is interesting when he sticks to history, but this is very little history and mostly political opinion.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A book club selection. I read much of it, but also listened to a reading of it by the author. If you want to begin to understand Islam and the modern world, this is an excellent start. It is so clearly written. Fascinating, yet unsettleing. I still like Thomas Friedman's from "Beruit to Jerusalem" the best, even though it may be somewhat dated by now.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent summary of the curent state of the Islamic mindset. What they are thinking, and what lead to that. Useful cultural interpretation of the environment out of which today's terrorists originate.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Audio read by the author.Very interesting. Written by the Princeton University Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies, this book is a great extension to Armstrong’s book about Islam. It examines the history of Islam and Middle Eastern countries from the perspective of Eastern Western relationships. It pays particular attention to the twentieth century and the establishment of such countries as Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, but charts the history of the region from 8th century onwards. Lewis draws our attention to the fact that while the hostility towards the European West has deep roots in the Islamic world due to the Western colonization, the hostility towards the United States is a new phenomenon which started only after the downfall of the Soviet Union, seen as an Eastern ally and counter-balance to the West. He also points out that the phenomenon of suicide bombers is new and without precedent, since even the ‘assassins’ never committed suicide.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent work. Get the audiobook; he reads it himself. Oakes is wrong.