Right after Orientalism, I read David Fromkins’ A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East . Fascinating. This detailed work covers everything leading up to, through and right after the First World War, related to the Middle East. Fromkin is a very engaging […]
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I just spent a few days reading a book about how the West textually created and defined the Orient during the last two centuries. Most of the book focused on texts from England and France. American writings came into view during the 20th century. Of all the classic texts on the Middle East reviewed and […] I finally got back to Bernard Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror after making it through Oren’s much lengthier (and much better) tome. Lewis’ work is an amplification of a magazine article for The New Yorker, and it reads like one. There are few references and the cohesiveness of the argument […] Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present documents the involvement of the U.S.A. in the Middle East from the first battles with Barbary pirates through our current war in Iraq. As Oren examines each period (demarcated by our wars), he describes the inter-connected roles of military […] I wish I could remember how I came across this book, but the genes which controlled the development of my memory have not been enticed by natural selection to provide a perfect memory. Oh well, I guess all my ancestors didn’t really need one either. Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our […] |
