People sometimes get weird when they get old. Wouldn't want to see how Thomas Friedman looks and talks in 30 years from now.

To play the Devil's Advocate, I'm going to argue that Lewis isn't entirely idiotic.

While Lewis was wrong to suggest that a confessional group may adopt a collective strategy, it is true that some influential takfiri types promote (but do not control, of course) Muslim immigration and the cultural or legal transformation of non-Muslim countries.

Interesting that, for example, the conquest of Anatolia is not regarded with the same critical eye as the conquest of Jerusalem and the Levant. There is a certain double standard that gives unique moral weight to Western nations' attempts at dominance, while forgiving or discounting those of non-Westerners. Often, the Franks are despised and the Seljuks are given a pass.

Whether the Crusades were justified depends on your point of view. If one takes the view that justice is the interest of the stronger and conquerers are the legitimate owners of their new territories, then the Fatimids and their predecessors had a claim, but the Franks had a stronger claim by virtue of their more recent military victory. If one takes a sectarian view, then the Crusades could be seen as unjust aggression (from the Muslim perspective - or, to be sure, from a pacifist perspective) or just defense of pilgrims and an attempt to reclaim stolen land (from the Christian perspective.) Why is it "mere puerile bigotry" to draw an analogy between jihad and Crusade?

Regarding the critique (elsewhere on `Aqoul) of the link between ideology and events like this week's thwarted Casablanca attacks - poverty may play some role, but it does not seem to be decisive. I realize that Marc Sageman may be regarded as conventional "polysci 'wisdom'" but he provides sound statistical evidence for his argument that "Islamist neo-Salafi terror" has a primarily ideological origin. There are many desperately poor people in the world - from India to Africa to South America to the countryside of China to the bidonvilles of Marseilles and Lyon to the inner cities of the United States - who do not plot to kill people and destroy cities. I often hear the argument that poverty is a driver, but I also notice that terrorists generally have many self-righteous rationalizations at the ready. Walter Laqueur's The Age of Terrorism - or, for that matter, Camus' L'homme révolté - are worth reading in this context.

Very good, flame away. Love the blog, by the way. Brilliant writing, style, choice of material.

Dear L,

there really does seem to be some natural law that makes people get overconfident once they're famous.

Lewis' early stuff (History of Turkey etc.) is good, right at the pinnacle of that time's scholarship. But then he just stopped developing intellectually. And I think his personal fight with Edward Said prevented him from ever thinking that he might've had some basic assumptions wrong, i.e. the essentializing of "Islamic civilization" & the like.

I saw him give a talk a few years ago & he was basically just a cantankerous old man. Too bad.

--MSK

One of the reasons I have a soft spot for Eddie Said - despite his having been a snotty-Lefty-out-of-his-element -- is that he "had Lewis' number" years ago.

As to the genesis of AEI's neoconservative transformation, I am ignorant of the detail, other than to restate the obvious that is has become a lunatic asylum (an eminent Jewish scholar denouncing an apology for the Crusades(!!!), yimach shmo, that Dr. Lewis) of sorts that is so bad that it has made (America-centric point here) those like Pat Buchanan seem or even become more sane, thoughtful, non-beliigerent and reflectively universalistic and humanistic. That's quite a feat.

Anyway, any pundit or scholar who says "As Bernard Lewis has observed...." causes me to immediately shut-down. (Substituting Fouad Ajami often works too).

Unlike many of my fellow authors, I rather like the works of Bernard Lewis...

Huh. Is there anyone (here, elsewhere) who actually thinks his older scholarly work was bad? If so, what books and why? Not that I've read terribly much of it, but what I did read seemed fine to me. I'd be interested to hear some reviews of the rest.

Let me also note that L'homme revolté would be worth reading even without Salafi suicide bombers in need of explanation.

Last but not least, I'd like it to be known that Klaus's comment for some reason made me I realize that I've always mentally conflated Thomas Friedman with Dr. Phil. I'm sure you've all made that connection a long time ago, but for me it adds a whole new dimension to him. Moustache of understanding and metaphor-laden style and therapeutic optimism and everything.

I've always mentally conflated Thomas Friedman with Dr. Phil

hehe. so many jokes, if only for the moment potentially, I'm laughing already. They really do look similar.

Dear alle,

Lewis' old stuff is just ... old. As in "at the pinnacle of its time but since superseded by new scholarship". It's like reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" or Lord Cromer on Egypt - one reads those less for content and more to understand how the scholars/politicians of their time understood the subject matter.

Thus, Lewis' old academic books are good examples of old, orientalist scholarship. But I wouldn't assign them for college classes or recommend them to "normal people" who want to learn something about the Middle East.

Of course, the newer stuff ("What went wrong?" and all that) is just pure crap.

--MSK

I think BL's works should be assigned as an example of Orientalist scholarship.

He combines all the aspects that are required.An extraordinary amount of knowledge, essentialization, bias,punditry along with intellectual justification to serve the powers that be.

I cannot deny the fact that his sheer knowledge is impressive, but what he uses all that for really riles me.

The dude has been talking about the "Clash of Civilizations" since 1963, for Christ's sake.He should have had the dignity to wait for a bit before indulging in queer punditry to strike at far off countries.

And voila examples of why I am .... unconvinced by the "oh Lewis essentialises" critiques.

I think BL's works should be assigned as an example of Orientalist scholarship.

Facile bollocks.

Lewis comes from "old school" historiography.

I have a prenchant for that, contra MSK, and am entirely unconvinced by the weak and pitiful "he's like Gibbon" critique which is false and illustrates the ideological character of the Lewis critique.

Lewis indeed is a historian from a school that looks at big structural views rather than nitty gritty. All alone that approach is and can be blinkered - to pretend it's Gibbonesque and merely useful to reflect on a historical POV is utterly bollocks and reflects ideological prejudice.

I am bloody sick suck stupid fucking games, coming from both bloody sides of the equation. The old school had great utility in providing a certain analytical framework that frankly is more useful in macro-pictures.

Social and behavioral history if it helps inform the big picture and build knowledge is good - if it is mere navel gazing whanking or exusising as it is, I prefer grand Narrative Lewis.

No wonder I retian sympathy for the aged whanker, as the young whankers are stupid fucks.

" It's like reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" or Lord Cromer on Egypt - one reads those less for content and more to understand how the scholars/politicians of their time understood the subject matter."

That is not the only reason to read classic historical works which become "classic" not for their age alone but their quality. That doesn't make them gospel but it makes these seminal works thought provoking, if one is open to such things.

Today, as it was back "in the good old days" only a few works of scholarship are gems and the rest is simply pedestrian. Adequate but not particularly insightful or informative. Or at worst, wrongheaded.

No one (or few) reads the poorly done works of past times, which certainly existed. For example, poli sci scholars still read Hobbes' Leviathan which is a classic but few would bother with Hobbes'incompetent sojurn into critiquing mathematical theory.

Gibbon might be thought-provoking.

Cromer & Lewis aren't.

I can only speak for why "old books" and/or "classics" are read in academia.

Lewis' work was used as textbooks to "show how it was/is". That is no longer the case, mainly because his kind of scholarship has been improved upon. Just like the geocentric view of the universe.

And it's not about "old school did grand analytical frameworks/narratives" and "new school only does nitty gritty stuff". There is a "new" framework & narrative that Lewis never bothered to even contemplate because it runs against some of his personal holy cows. And that was precisely the moment were he ceased to be relevant for academia anymore.

The young whankers are anything BUT "stupid fucks". But then ... 'ala kiifak.

I don't know enough of the original Lewis to say whether or not he is a worthy historian. Certainly modern trends in history, especially the jargon-filled post-modern noise, and even the overemphasis on deconstructing Orientalism, are bogus.

In the end though, Lewis is a useless bigoted dick; the high-end of this troublesome high-to-low-brow spectrum:

lewis--pipes--uris--little green footballs

"There is a "new" framework & narrative that Lewis never bothered to even contemplate because it runs against some of his personal holy cows. And that was precisely the moment were he ceased to be relevant for academia anymore"

Well, that is effectively a self-referential argument which would lead me to ask "How are the new holy cows doing these days ?" :o)

They are not being "holy". That's one of the main differences.

Well, let me just say that I find MSK's evaluation of Lewis to be lacking.

He has his blind spots.

As do new areas of historical scholarship. That some of the more precious areas of new scholarship are as dismissive of Lewis as Gibbon is no surprise to me.

I consider them whankers, however, as in no way is Lewis as outmoded as Gibbon (on factual levels and analytical levels simultaneously).

I'll then echo Hogan: Certainly modern trends in history, especially the jargon-filled post-modern noise, and even the overemphasis on deconstructing Orientalism, are bogus.

At the same time, w/o getting into the over-done rejection of Lewis' works, his commentary has its major blindspots, and everything modern he writes is largely run through w rotted bollocks.