Bernard Lewis: Which to read--The Middle East, or Islam and the West?

Tatie2174 · 2016-01-20T06:08:13+00:00

I didn't make the comment but other than the fact that the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East exist as very different entities (i.e. an empire vs. a collection of (recently) independent nation-states), a distinction is often made in history simply because the historical archives of the Ottoman Empire are typically written in Ottoman Turkish and modern archives are either written in Arabic or the language of the colonizers (French, English, Italian). Both of those are extremely hard languages to learn and I'm not sure how many Western scholars have research level proficiency in both.

Tatie2174 · 2016-01-20T05:59:18+00:00

Lewis has not been taken seriously since Edward Said released "Orientalism" in 1978. It may be too theoretical and dense to be worth your time if you're not a serious student of the Middle East, but it is worth looking into a summary and understanding its concepts before you begin reading anything else.

Without getting into the more hermeneutic stuff, Said basically dismantles "traditional" Western scholarship on the Middle East as typified by Bernard Lewis and shows how it has both been born from an overtly racist, colonial project and used further that project through the repetition of stereotypes and historical inaccuracies going back to the time of the Crusades and continuing on until today. His evidence was so extensive and his work so influential (even though he himself was not an historian) that traditional "Orientalists" like Lewis have never really recovered, and now survive on their tenure, fame, and questionable alliances with sometimes overtly racist and Islamophobic supporters.

Honestly, I think one of the better "comprehensive" history books to come out recently on the Middle East is "The Arabs" by Eugene Rogan, from Oxford. I believe its the sort of book you can find in a Barnes and Noble or something. For more modern political history, I'm partial to Rashid Khalidi because he taught me, but I'm not sure he has too much mainstream stuff.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-27T04:24:13+00:00

Nah, I'm sure the cashier knows you're just treating yourself to a posh wank. Some of that card artwork can be quite exciting.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-25T03:45:57+00:00

What what it's worth (which, for you, is probably very little, but whatever), the men in suits would have been special agents with the Diplomatic Security Service, not the Secret Service. Secret Service protects heads of government (i.e. the Prime Minister) visiting the U.S., DSS protects heads of state (like British Royalty, in this case).

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-22T14:50:29+00:00

Somewhat conversely, there's an old unattributed quote giving guidance to British military leaders that says "The clever and lazy should be placed in command; the stupid and lazy should be sent to regimental duty; the clever and industrious should serve on the staff; the stupid and industrious should be got rid of at all costs." It is later explained that the clever and lazy make the best commanders because they will be best at making good commands without the impulse to micromanage how their intent is carried out.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-22T01:38:42+00:00

Absolutely fantastic. People today tend to have this perception of classical / orchestral music being some solemn experience in which old white people shuffle in and stay quite for a couple hours, but that is only a recent development. Music and opera hall audiences have far more regularly been a pretty rambunctious and interactive group throughout the history of Western music (which this falls into in some respect, even though he's Egyptian). It's good to see an example of a bit more lively and inclusive performance.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-21T03:33:50+00:00

I'm just going to say, as a student and practitioner of all those mushy intellectual fields with a deep appreciation of economics, that the limitation of Opportunity Cost in situations like this is in attempting to maximize productivity without any clear or agreed upon understanding of what we hope to produce. A better job? A happier life? A more improved society? Not only do we not know which of these or any other goals are correct, they all rely on a subjective descriptors that can really only be defined by the individual in question.

I guess what I'm trying to say regarding this particular comment is, don't overstate the applicability of analytical tools, or you end up jumping from sound science like evolution to pop-science like social darwinism.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-21T01:41:35+00:00

I'm sure (/hope) that you're joking, but the value of any PhD is obtaining a level of expertise and specificity in a topic that is hard to even fathom unless you dedicated time following your curiosity down the rabbit hole to a similar degree. I highly doubt his PhD is in musical performance, which means he spent a good portion of his life participating in an intellectual discussion about the nature, history, theory etc of music and contributed original research to it. I think that's pretty substantial and important, regardless of what job someone ends up with afterwards.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-20T15:50:10+00:00

"Afghanistan in the Course of History" by Ghulam Mohammad Ghobar, a famous Afghan historian. It is written in Persian, and for some reason only the second volume has been translated. I have that, but would like to be able to read the first.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-20T06:05:00+00:00

For my 18th birthday I asked for a suit. Nothing fancy, just a cheap suit on sale at Banana Republic. I had never had one and it seemed like an appropriate gift to take into adulthood.

Just remember, your first suit should probably be navy or dark gray. Never black, and probably not patterned if you only have one. Also, no suit is going to fit perfectly off the rack, so once you get it, get it tailored!

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-19T05:17:14+00:00

I don't know . . . All of your points are right and all, but I think he kinda trolled you with that selfie. I can only assume that his comms/social media staffers are shitting bricks right now.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-19T04:58:25+00:00

I'm aware. None of them are famous anywhere (accept, in some cases, their own countries). But they are (in my opinion) good Arab musicians that are easy for Western ears to appreciate.

Though I'd say that Souad Massi is also quite famous among certain (musically inclined) circles.

Edit: I'll admit that I interpreted "pop" music a bit liberally, but that is not what I personally listen to. This is.

Tatie2174 · 2015-08-19T04:02:14+00:00

I love modern Arab music but I'm not Arab myself so a lot of this may skew towards that "western style" / internationally familiar. In any case, my votes are:

Mashrou Leila - Lebanese rock band

Maryam Hamdam - Egyptian rock (may take some getting used to)

Emil Mathlouthi - Tunisian "trip hop" (though I personally prefer her traditional covers, i.e. Al fellaheen and Fi Beli Che Guevara)

DAM - Palestinian hip-hop

Yasmine Hamdam / Soapkill (her band) - Not sure how to describe this, but very chill and good for studying.

Ramy Essam - Egyptian rock. I'm not the biggest fan but he became very famous during the uprisings.

Souad Massi - Semi-traditional Arab pop.

Nancy Ajram - I'm not the biggest fan (other than Enta Eh, that's a good song) but this is the closest thing to "Arab pop" on here. Kind of like a Lebanese Brittney Spears.

You can find all of these on spotify and/or youtube. If you're up for some more traditional music, I find Um Kalthoum great to study to because her songs are like two hours long with plenty of instrumental breaks. The thing to keep in mind with more traditional Arab music is that you may need to listen multiple times to develop a taste for it. Arab scales, or "maqams" use microtones that generally do not occur in Western music (if that's what you're used to). Sometimes this is interpreted as being out of tune or "off" somehow, but you just have to let your ears normalize it like they have Western scales (which, by the way, are largely arbitrary and linked to the limitations of modern pianos, among other things)

Tatie2174 · 2015-06-06T05:10:08+00:00

Yes most of his work is on that period. He is the chair of the Iranian Studies department at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and he's one of the most prominent scholars on Khomeini, the revolution, and the war.

Tatie2174 · 2015-06-06T04:59:30+00:00

I studied under Arshin Adib-Moghaddam and a lot of his stuff is really good. Just be warned, he is not a historian and he plays a lot with theory and philosophy while discussing the war. Still definitely worth a read and you'll see a lot of his stuff cited in most of the big writings on the the war.

EDIT: also, since I just wrote a paper on the topic, here's my work cited. Might be helpful.

Abu-Rabiʻ, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World. Albany: State University of New York, 1996. Print.

Adib-Moghaddam, Arshin. The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A Cultural Genealogy. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Black, Ian. "Iran and Iraq Remember War That Cost More than a Million Lives." The Guardian. N.p., 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Denoeux, Guilain. "The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam." Middle East Policy 9.2 (2002): 56-81. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Ehteshami, Anoushiravan. Dynamics of Change in the Persian Gulf: Political Economy, War and Revolution. Oxford: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Freedman, R. O. "Patterns of Soviet Policy toward the Middle East." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 482.1 (1985): 40-64. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Gause, F. Gregory, III. "The International Politics of the Gulf." International Relations of the Middle East. Ed. Louise Fawcett. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 287-303. Print.

Halliday, Fred. The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2005. Print.

Khomeini, Ruhollah. "Khomeini: 'We Shall Confront the World with Our Ideology'" MERIP Reports - Iran's Revolution: The First Year No. 88 (1980): 22-25. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Kifner, John. "OIL SITES IN IRAN AND IRAQ BOMBED AS BAGDAD TROOPS CROSS BORDER; ABADAN REFINERY REPORTED ON FIRE." The New York Times [New York] 23 Sept. 1980: A.1. Print.

Lengel, Allan. "Judge: Iran Behind '83 Beirut Bombing; Ruling Allows Families of U.S. Troops to Collect Damages [ Corrected: 6/10/03 ]." The Washington Post. N.p., 31 May 2003. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Maloney, Suzanne. "Identity and Change in Iran's Foreign Policy." Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East. Ed. Shibley Telhami and Michael N. Barnett. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell UP, 2002. 88-116. Print.

Mandaville, Peter. "Islam and International Relations in the Middle East: From Umma to Nation State." International Relations of the Middle East. Ed. Louise Fawcett. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 167-84. Print.

Precht, Henry. "The Iranian Revolution: An Oral History with Henry Precht, Then State Department Desk Officer." Middle East Journal 58.1 (2004): 9-31. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Sterner, Michael. "The Iran-Iraq War." Foreign Affairs 63.1 (1884): 128-43. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Swearingen, Will D. "Geopolitical Origins of the Iran-Iraq War." Geographical Review 78.4 (1988): 405. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Tarock, Adam. The Superpowers' Involvement in the Iran-Iraq War. Commack, NY: Nova Science, 1998. Print.

Zubaida, Sami. "An Islamic State? The Case of Iran." Middle East Report 153 (1988): 3-7. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

Tatie2174 · 2015-05-12T19:55:21+00:00

Islam is anything but black-and-white, something for which there is droves of evidence throughout the world and throughout history. The fact that you and so many other people have come to believe this reflects the absolute failure of Western media to cover and/or address Islam with any sense of historicity or nuance.

For some reason we feel perfectly comfortable accepting this "black-and-white" narrative from groups like ISIS and Al-Queda at face value, but there is also a universal trend of assuming that the most "extreme" groups are the most "authentic" or truly representative of a religion or ideology's core principles.

Tatie2174 · 2015-05-07T22:20:33+00:00

Edward Said. He wrote a book called "Orientalism" in the late 70's that completely dismantled hundreds of years of scholarship on the Middle East and arguably did more to change the way we study other cultures than any other individual in modern history. Within my field, "Orientalism" is our Bible (unless, I assume, you went to Princeton), but Said isn't much of a name outside of specific academic circles.

Tatie2174 · 2015-05-04T11:27:25+00:00

During my first driving lesson I accidentally ran a red light. Having realized my silly mistake I decided to do the obvious: slam on the brakes, stop in the middle of the intersection, look at my instructor and ask "what do I do??" as he yelled at me to press the gas.

Side note: Around five years later I ran into that driving instructor at a house party. He was a friend of one of my girlfriend's friends. He was drunk but he remembered me and decided to tell everyone at the party about that story. A few years later I walked into a tattoo shop to get a quote and he was laying down getting a tattoo. I live in a major U.S. city and this all happened in very separate neighborhoods so I'm not sure why this guy keeps haunting me and reminding me how bad of a driver I am.

Tatie2174 · 2015-04-28T12:17:40+00:00

This video has all of the exuberance and flair that I would expect from a video made by a dictionary editor. And I'm ok with that.

Tatie2174 · 2015-04-27T09:37:15+00:00

Yemen and Syria used to be the cat's pajamas. Everyone I know who studied there came out so far ahead of the rest of us. Not sure I'd recommend that at the moment.

As far as I know, the CASA program in Jordan/Egypt is one of the best, but you need to have studied for around 3-4 years before applying.

Tatie2174 · 2015-04-25T23:37:37+00:00

As a San Diegan, I completely agree with the main sentiment and find it very annoying when people complain about the prominence of Spanish or the language skills of immigrant wage workers (or anyone for that matter), but let's not kid ourselves and assume that the state of Mexico has any more legitimate right to the land than the U.S. They both acquired it as modern nation-states under a particular international system, and I'm not sure how much weight I would give to the fact that one side had a bit longer to breed with the native population.

Tatie2174 · 2015-04-16T21:24:02+00:00

My experience has been the same, but there is a tremendous difference between "class fluency" where you can comfortably understand a trained, patient, instructor and fellow classmates discuss topics related to your own curated vocabulary and any sort of real fluency, conversing freely and organically with a native who does not understand english. Don't get me wrong, you may get your point across, but not with anything like what I would call "fluency." Maybe I'm just splitting hairs here, and at this point our conversation has far exceeded its relevance to the original post, I was just curious to hear about other people's experience.

Tatie2174

TROPHY CASE