Status
Available
Collection
Publication
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (1966), Edition: Revised edition, 200 pages
Description
`Whoever lives in our country, speaks our language, is brought up in our culture and takes pride in our glory is one of us.' Thus ran a declaration of modern leaders of Arab states. But what exactly is an Arab, and what has been their place in the course of human history? In this well-established classic, Professor Lewis examines the key issues of Arab development - their identity, the national revival which cemented the creation of the Islamic state, and the social and economic pressures that destroyed the Arab kingdom and created the Islamic empire. He analyses the forces which contributed to
User reviews
LibraryThing member bookomaniac
This is a good, fairly concise introduction to the richly varied history of the Arab world. In comparison with the first edition of 1950, Lewis certainly has partially assimilated the critique on 19th and 20th century orientalism (which only viewed the Muslim world from Western eyes) and removed
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the worst deformations. But the book remains a bit unbalanced. Lewis zooms in almost entirely on the so-called heyday of Arab civilization, from the 7th to the 12th century, and the evolutions from then on are haphazardly treated in a few dozen pages. This has to do with the fact that the Islamic expansion afterwards was mainly a Turkish, Persian, Indian and East Asian case, and much less an Arab one. That distinction can certainly be made, but remains artificial, because also in the so-called flowering period the Islamic civilization (s) had various roots. Even in this updated edition from 1990, recent developments, and especially the emerging political Islamism, receive hardly any attention. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0091055512 / 9780091055516