Customer Reviews

What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response

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the Ottoman Turks. There is a subtle slight of hand in this book. Lewis uses the Ottoman Empire as a proxy for Islam, and tries to explain why it succumbed to the West. Yet, the direct descendants of the Ottoman Turks, namely, the modern state of Turkey, is a modern, Westernized, secular state. In other words, the heart of the Ottoman Empire did successfully adapt and catch up to the West. The real question should not be "what happened to Islam?"; it should be "what happened to the Arabs?". And to answer that question, you need to examine the differing responses of the Ottoman Arabs and Turks to the West (if there were any), and, the different experiences of Turkey and the Arab regions after the fall of empire. Specifically, you have to examine the impact of colonization on the development of Arab polity, economy, etc. And, you have to look at the influence of the West and the Cold War in shaping the independent Arab states. Without this analysis, you can't understand why there is such a large gap with Turkey, much less with the rest of the West.

Lewis does none of these things. As a result, even after reading this book, I still don't know what went wrong.

Bernard Lewis, prominent Middle East scholar of Princeton University, presents us a historical perspective of the Middle East response to the West. Most of the book is about the Ottoman Empire's respond to the rise of the Europe and the West in general by the sixteenth century; how did the Ottoman elites conceive the reasons why the Empire had begun to fall in various realms including military, political, economic, culture, science and technology? As Lewis stresses in his book, the Ottoman elites first heeded attention over military aspects of the increasing power gap between the West and the Empire. Then, the focus has been switched to legal, social and cultural aspects of the gap. 'Modernization and Social Equality', and 'Secularism and the Civil Society' chapters are about these aspects. Lewis also touches upon the distinctions in the areas of music, art, and even in the notions of time and space. This part of the book has several entertaining stories.

Bernard's Lewis's discussion about two different Middle Eastern approaches to the West deserves close attention. One of them is blaming the West for the increasing gap between the two worlds. The other is to make self-criticism in asking 'what did we wrong'? These two different and clashing perspectives, in fact, can be channeled into two mainstream movements in the Islamic world/Middle East; reactionary factions and positive activists. While the first always blames the West, the latter envisions a modernized and developed world in keeping peace with both the West and the Middle Eastern/Islamic values.

B.Lewis's book has an important shortcoming. Lewis is by and large biased toward the West and he ignores the significant importance of Western colonialism-dominance over the Islamic World vis-a-vis the Middle Eastern response to the West. This shortcoming is, however, a great obstacle to have a thorough analysis of Islam-West relations.

In general, the book is by and large about history rather than current politics. One important note dealing with Lewis's work is that the book does not cover anti-Western or anti-American movements within the Islamic World during the twentieth century. It is also not about the September 11. In fact, as the author suggests, the core of the book is composed of series of three public lectures given in Austria in September 1999.

This is a brilliant book by a renowned expert, Bernard Lewis. He is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University. And, so it may surprise some readers to discover just how readable this, his most recent book, is.

Although this was written prior to 9/11, it could not be timelier. This is a timely read if you want if know about the culture that expanded from its roots in Mecca and Medina to one that ruled the Mid East, northern Africa, Spain, and Portugal and finally knocked at the gates of Vienna, not once, but twice. It is a history that we are dealing with today. Bernard Lewis presents a compelling argument that as military failures occurred, one explanation that took root in the Islamic world was that God was displeased because Muslims were not leading lives in accordance with God’s wishes. Religious leaders became more powerful, and culture became more insulated. They seem to have been disinterested in Europe.

This is a timely read, if you want to know about the culture that saw no rights for slaves, infidels, and women in the 7th century, and sees not need to change that stance even in the 21st century.

This is a timely read if you want to understand just what questions are being asked and answered. Is the question “What went wrong?â€� or is it “Who did this to us?â€� One answer leads to taking corrective actions and implementing change, the other answer leads to blaming others. I think that Professor Lewis does address what went wrong. What he does not do is this†he does not present us with a solution of how to fix it. He does not tell us how we can survive together†or even if we can.

I highly recommend this book.

This book is a yes book. There is very little opinion but what there is, is based on his research, and he did a remarkable job on that. He states what are the reasons of what went wrong from what actually is, the government, the tradition of allowing government to intermingle with the belief in Islam and visa versa. A bank of other info that brings you the mental state of this region. Men are clearly in power in this belief system which extends and perpetuates this system of oppression and firm belief. These men are for the most part in agreement which makes for some primitive conflict towards us. The shocking thought is this system will not be changed as it is imprinted on most from birth, as THE way of life. From that I conclude we will be having a long terrorist era as Bin Laden could be replaced by thousands with this way of thinking in the Middle East. If you are one of the few who think there is a solution to this, you should read this book first. After reading the book myself my opinion is We are truly at war with no foreseeable solution. I am convinced from this book we will experience more terror.
I highly recommend another book that goes into reasons why these people attacked, coming from there religious belief and offers some solutions, SB 1 or God By Karl Mark Maddox

Professor Lewis of Princeton University is a world-renown authority on the history of the Middle East and the author of many books on the subject. Here he expands on lectures given at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna in 1999 to explore and answer the question of why the preeminent culture in the world during the Middle Ages has become the laggard culture of modern times.

Lewis' point of departure for the lectures can perhaps be taken from page 152:

"By all the standards that matter in the modern world--economic development and job creation, literacy and educational and scientific achievement, political freedom and respect for human rights--what was once a mighty civilization has indeed fallen low." (p. 152)

The question of course is why? Lewis' answer points not to Western imperialism nor the much earlier Mongol invasions, believing them to be "a consequence, not a cause, of the inner weakness of Middle-Eastern states and societies." He notes, first that "the greatest achievements of the Muslim peoples, notably in Iran, came after, not before, the Mongol invasions." Then he points to the "postimperial development of former British possessions...Singapore and Hong Kong...the various lands that once made up the British Empire in India," success stories that cause us to wonder why the Middle East did not recover as well. (pp. 152-152)

Lewis makes no clear unequivocal statement about who and/or what is to blame, but it is not Islam itself, he believes, although much of the evidence he presents certainly suggests that some characteristics of Islam are indeed part of the cause, in particular the inability of the Muslim mind to find a way to separate the secular from the religious. Lewis notes that nowhere in the Qu'ran is there anything like the Biblical injunction to "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (p. 97) He adds, "The idea that...any part of human life is in any sense outside the scope of religious law and jurisdiction is alien to Muslim thought." A contributing factor in Lewis' view is the imperfect and selective adoption of Western ways, especially the rise of Western-style nation states with autocratic rulers. He hints that shari'a law itself may also be a factor, writing, "There is [in Islam]...no distinction between cannon law and civil law, between the law of the church and the law of the state, crucial in Christian history." (p. 100)

In the "Conclusion" Lewis writes, "For others, the main culprit is Muslim sexism, and the relegation of women to an inferior position in society, thus depriving the Islamic world of the talents and energies of half its people." He notes that still others point very interestingly to "the depredations of the goat that, by stripping the bark off trees and tearing up grass by the roots, turned once fertile lands into deserts." Or to, "the exhaustion of precious metals, coinciding with the discovery and exploitation by Europe of the resources of the new world." In this connection he asks, "Why did the discoverers of America sail from Spain and not a Muslim Atlantic port, where such voyages were indeed attempted in earlier times? (pp. 156-157)

For Muslims themselves there is the "blame game" which increasingly points to the Jews and the Americans as the cause of all their troubles. Lewis notes, "For the governments, at once oppressive and ineffectual, that rule much of the Middle East, this game serves a useful, indeed an essential purpose--to explain the poverty that they have failed to alleviate and to justify the tyranny that they have intensified. In this way they seek to deflect the mounting anger of their unhappy subjects against other, outer targets." (p. 159) In this regard, Lewis points to "the events of 1948--the failure of five Arab states and armies to prevent half a million Jews from establishing a state in the debris of the British Mandate for Palestine" as a shock. He adds, "it was bad enough to be defeated by the great imperial powers of the West; to suffer the same fate at the hands of...Jews was an intolerable humiliation." (p. 154)

The situation in the Middle East today is one of sadness and irony: the profits from all those oil riches go not to the people but to the ruling elites while the oil itself is used to power the economies of the west and far east. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer and more desperate to find a target for their frustration. Eventually, I suspect they will realize that blaming the Jews and the West for their troubles is fruitless and they must take a look at themselves and especially their dictatorial, theocratic, monarchical rulers for a solution. The day is coming when the great economies of the world will finally give up their oil addiction. It is too bad that the money from that oil is not now going toward training and educating the people of the Middle East in preparation for that time.

As many other readers have suggested, this is not Bernard Lewes' best work, and it is a bit of a failure in one important respect: it doesn't answer the rhetorical question from the title. Lewis is much better at describing historic events and finding out insightful and important tidbits of information than he is at deeper analysis. This is quite understandable, since he is a historian of the old school and neither political nor social scientist. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating and interesting book, and anyone who is not familiar with the history of the Middle East, especially compared to the history of Europe, would benefit from reading it. The book was completed shortly before 9/11 attacks on the US, but in its themes it proved extremely prescient and relevant. Lewis is very sympathetic towards his subject matter, the peoples and cultures of the Middle East, and is fair minded and balanced when presenting historical facts. His is not the goal of condemning and denigrating Middle Eastern peoples and the Islamic word, but a genuine concern for explaining that part of the world, and through explaining aiding in its understanding. This is an admirable book that goes a long way towards achieving that goal.

The strength of this book is a relatively compact analysis of the flaws of tradtional explanations of why Western Europe pulled ahead of the middle east, and have remained ahead by most of the indicators of modern power. Basically a series of essays (the core of which were given in Vienna in Sept 1999), the book does not really attempt to provide a clear answer to the question it asks. None-the-less, the clear exposition of the clash of Islamic and Christian culture, and Lewis' excellant use of comparisons with Western interaction with the non-Muslim East, is very thought-provoking. His claim that Western music is a metaphor for what the Middle East has never "got" about Western culture was an intriquing idea to me, and his argument that secularism (espeically separation of Church and State) and feminism (especially open participation of women in society beginning in the Middle Ages) are key differences in our societies is a challenging, but credible interpretation. As a physicist, I like his emphasis on modern science, not technology, as a source of Western power. So I learned a lot from the book, but it begged for some summarizing comments that was not provided by the short Coclusion chapter. I am glad that Lewis made these essays available to us, but disappointed that I still wonder "What went wrong?" and "How can we fix it?"

This is a surprisingly disappointing book, as What Went Wrong? never really answers its title question.

Most of Bernard Lewis' book is a relatively brief survey of Islamic history, particularly of its Ottoman and Arab varieties. For those who already have a working knowledge of Islamic history, you will not find many new revelations in Lewis' book. To be fair, I didn't find the historical part of his book noticeably biased or one-sided, but it certainly didn't provide a lot of insight. He makes a good distinction between modernization and Westernization, but he's hardly the only one to have used it.

Most of his attempts to answer the title question seem to be appended to the end of each chapter, almost as an afterthought. He does touch on standard Western arguments for Islam's decline (lack of state/religious separation, treatment of women, victimhood mentality, disdain of foreign cultures, etc.), but he never really commits himself to a systematic argument that explains why Islamic culture hasn't regained its former stature. Lewis does briefly say that Arab Muslims, in particular, should look in the mirror for their weaknesses, rather than to their succession of foreign conquerors. I doubt this pleases many Arabs. Nevertheless, that's about as polemical as his argument gets. One thing I did find helpful was Lewis' distinction between "traditional" Islam and fundamentalist Islam. Lewis clearly favours the former, given its roots in the more tolerant and less bureaucratic Islam of the medieval period. But whether it's practical to approve of this model in the 21st century remains to be seen.

Overall, I didn't gain much from this book, and I think its popularity is unwarranted.

Lewis is a well known scholar on all issues pertaining to the Middle East. In this book, he aims to make a brief case on what happened to the Muslim world that made go from science and technology leader of the world in the 14th century to undervelopment and war defeats in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In rought 250 pages, it is very difficult to make a well argued case for a topic so extensive as this. In his explanation, Lewis divides the argument in two parts --

1. What made the Muslim world surge ahead of the West initially -- fractional societies in the west in the Middle Ages made Muslims regard the West (correctly) as a backward area. As a better integrated society, the Muslims were able to develop and disseminate technology far faster, borrowing ideas from the East (China and India had extensive contact with the Muslims).

2. What made the West catch up and pass -- here, the argument is a difficult one, but it makes general sense. Because of the tenets of freedom that came about with the Renaissance and French Revolution, the West liberated its societies and integrated them, allowing for the development of science and technology at a far faster pace than a rigidly managed society in Turkey at the time. Issues such as the freedom of women, freedom of press, equal rights, etc. emerged in the west initially, but since the Muslim world was accostumed to disregard the west, they fell behind.

Overall, the book touches on some major topics that are indeed important in development. However, I did finish the book with the sense that the argument was not complete. It can only partially explain to me the reason why such great societies as the Muslims in the 14th century, who went so far as to conquer Constantinople, drive deep into central Europe and invade most of Spain and Portugal, fell behind to the poin that they were conquered and remain today below average in development.

Don't read this book if you want a pat answer to the question posed in the title. What Lewis provides is an introduction to how difficult the question really is. He starts with a brief history of the interaction between Muslim countries and the West since the middle ages when the Middle East was home to the most advanced cultures on every front, from art to commerce and from science to human rights. While he proffers many anecdotes that highlight the attitudes that produced the decline of the Middle East, he settles on no clear answer. Why, for example, did it take several centuries for the printing press to become generally used in Islamic countries, even though it was well known?

Clearly, the initial arrogance and insularity of the Muslim countries gave the West a running head start once the Renaissance began, but that cannot be the complete explanation. Further, the suppression of women that leaves half the population as non-contributors also plays a role. One of the most promising lines of inquiry turns on the lack of an Islamic concept of separation of church and state such as that engendered in Christianity by the "render unto Caesar" text in the New Testament. By the end however, we are left with the conviction that there is no easy answer, and that the conflict between Islamic fundamentalists hell-bent on a return to the past and western societies intent on increasing, not decreasing, connectivity throughout the world will likely be with us for the rest of this century.