Description
Book SynopsisLooks beneath the rhetoric of hatred and misunderstanding to challenge the views of Islamic history. This book argues that beginning in the 1950's American policymakers misread the Muslim world and, instead of focusing on the discontent against the government, saw only a forum for liberal, democratic reforms within those governments.
Trade ReviewRichard Bulliet's The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization re-examines most of the pieties of the West about the Muslim world and Islamic politics (and about the West itself) and finds them not only wrong but wrongly conceived... He argues that modern European and Muslim history are deeply intertwined and that one cannot be understood in isolation from the other, thereby launching a profound challenge to teachers, historians and policy-makers. -- Juan Cole, University of Michigan The International Journal of Middle East Studies [An] insightful book about Islam and Muslims that actually provides hope for the future... this book is a quick, informative, and encouraging read. Publishers Weekly A clearly written book, aimed at the general reader...requires a place on the library shelf -- Steve Young Library Journal Presents a persuasive case for viewing Islam and the West... [a]brilliant new book -- Emran Qureshi Toronto Globe and Mail Seeks to bridge a gap between Islam and the West... His solution is to try to patch things up by emphasizing all that Islam and Christianity have in common. -- Daniel Lazare The Nation As Bulliet writes... there is a far better case for 'Islamo-Christian civilization' than there is for a clash of civilizations. Washington Monthly Offers a rich lode of penetrating insights. -- L. Carl Brown Foreign Affairs A positive and challenging proposal, underscoring the importance of the phases we use in defining our world. Future Survey Obviously, this is an important book with the important proposal to familiarize everyone with the term "Islam-Christian civilization". Let us take heed. -- Murad Wilfried Hofmann The Muslim World Book Review It deserves the widest possible readership, addressing as it does with wit and insight one of the most freighted issues of our times. -- Malise Ruthven Times Literary Supplement Bulliet's ideas are collectively imaginative and a major contribution... No reader will see the history either of Christendom or Islam in quite the same way. -- Ronald Davis Domes Great scholarship and vision... Bulliet offers rare insights in the Islamic and the (post)-Christian worlds. -- Johannes J. G. Jansen International History Review An excellent touchstone... this is not a volume that should be ignored. -- John J. Curry, Ph.D. Digest of Middle East Studies [A] wise and wonderful book. -- Howard J. Dooley Journal of World History [These essays] emanate from a fair-minded approach to strident debates - written, if you will, from the center. International Journal of Middle East Studies
Table of ContentsPreface Chapter 1. Islamo-Christian Civilization Chapter 2. What Went On? Chapter 3. Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places Chapter 4. The Edge of the Future Appendix Works Cited
