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A Middle East Mosaic : Fragments of Life, Letters and History
Editied by Bernard Lewis

0679451919 Retail Price: $35.00
CenturyOne Price: $17.50
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Format: Hardcover , 512pp.
ISBN: 9780679451914
Publisher: Random House
Pub. Date: April 2000

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Description

From The Publisher:

In times of war and in peace, from the earliest days of the Roman Empire to our own, Westerners have journeyed to the lands of the middle east, bringing back accounts of their adventures and impressions. Yet it was never a one way exchange. From the first Arab embassy to the Vikings in the 9th century to the internet musings of the Taliban, A Middle East Mosaic collects a rich, boisterous literature of cultural exchange.

We see the American Revolution through the eyes of a Moroccan Ambassador and the French Revolution through a series of Imperial Ottoman proclamations. We find surprising portraits of Napoleon ("a brigand chief"), TE Lawrence and Ataturk. We learn what George Washington and Machiavelli through t of Turkish politics and hear Flaubert and Thackeray rail against eastern crime and punishment. We peer into Voltaire's business correspondence and follow the footsteps of Mark Twain, Richard Burton, Gertrude Bell and Ibn Battutta, the Marco Polo of the east. Great discoveries are recorded - an Egyptian Ambassador is introduced to electricity and dismisses the spectacle as "frankish trickery;" another pronounces the invention of a secure mail system most useful for assignations. We enter the harem with a 16th century organ maker and emerge with Ottoman reform.

It was not until the sixteenth century that the first middle eastern rulers entered into diplomatic relations with European rulers, but trade often precede diplomatic relations. Business men from the days of the crusades against Saladin to the oil prospecting of Samuel Cox and his descendents have seen great possibilities in the markets of the middle east. And throughout the centuries we have been united by war. We witness the outbreak of the Crimean war with Karl Marx and enter Egypt with Napoleon. We observe Arab customs with George Patton and visit Baghdad and Cairo with George F. Kennan in the second world war. When Usama bin Ladin rails against "Jews and crusaders" occupying the holy land, he is rehearsing a grievance with a long history.

This symphony of voices, full of wit and wisdom, spite and wonder, suspicion, befuddlement and occasional insight, is ordered and explained by our foremost living historian of the middle east. The fruit of a lifetime of scholarship and erudition, A Middle East Mosaic is a dazzling capstone to a brilliant career. In a spirited reappraisal of western views of the east and eastern views of the west over the last two thousand years, Bernard Lewis gives us a brilliant over-view of 2,000 years of commerce, diplomacy, war and exploration.

This book is a delight, a treasury of stories drawn from letters, diaries and histories, but also from unpublished archives and previously untranslated accounts. Diplomats and interpreters, slaves, soldiers, pilgrims and missionaries, princes and spies, businessmen, doctors and priests all pour forth their stories of the people and events that shaped history. A Middle East Mosaic cannot fail to appeal to anyone with an appetite for history and a curiosity about the vagaries of cultural exchange.


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Reviews

"Comparison is the beginning of all serious scholarship, and Bernard Lewis is the greatest scholar of the Middle East in the second half of the 20th century because his knowledge of other regions too - Europe, China, India--gives him a rich basis for comparison with the Arab, Turkish, Persian, and Jewish worlds. No other Middle East expert could have compiled this Collection. Only an authentic renaissance man."
—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Arabists


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About the Author

Bernard Lewis is the author of The Middle East: A Brief History of the last 2,000 Years, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, and The Arabs in History, among other seminal books in a long and distinguished career. Internationally recognized as one of our century's greatest historians of the middle east, his books have been translated into over twenty languages. A Fellow of the British Academy, a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institut de France, he is Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and was a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study.

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Table of Contents

Prefaceix
Part IA Bundle of Prejudices1
Ancient Prejudices5
On National Character: Some Medieval Judgments7
Some Western Prejudices10
Part IIAs Others See Us21
In Darkest Europe27
The Mysterious Occident35
Two Revolutions38
The Western Menace43
Part IIIMigratory Words59
Part IVTravelers73
On Travel and Travelers79
Looking the Other Way84
Quarantine91
Western Travelers94
Part VDiplomats125
Rules Concerning Ambassadors132
Reception and Negotiation136
Modern Diplomacy160
Part VIWomen177
Interpreting Scripture183
Middle Eastern Views187
European Views195
Four Classical Love Poems211
Part VIIGovernment215
The Theory and Practice of Government219
Crime and Punishment229
Aspects of Reform237
Imperial Sidelights244
Intellectuals and the State247
Revolution248
Part VIIIWar267
War and Peace271
Terrorists in the Holy Land276
The Proper Use of Spies279
Ottoman Advances and Retreat284
The First World War and the Arab Rising300
The Second World War and After309
The Poetry of War and of War Weariness320
Part IXCommerce and Trafficking323
Early Islamic Views327
Trafficking with the Enemy328
Business as Usual330
The Slave Trade338
The Business of Oil342
Part XArts and Sciences349
Choice of a Profession355
Science and Medicine355
Music363
Arts and Letters366
Precursors369
Persian Quatrains371
Part XIFood and Drink373
Rules378
Middle Eastern Views382
Western Views386
Dining in Turkey387
Coffee and Tobacco393
Part XIIWit and Wisdom397
Sayings of the Rabbis401
Part XIIIProphecy and Retrospect413
Prophecy and Empire417
Prophecy and the Holy Land420
War and Peace424
What Is Your Name, and How Do You Spell It?429
Cast of Characters432
Bibliography442
Index452


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