The End of Modern History in the Middle East

Bernard Lewis looks at the new era in the Middle East. With the departure of imperial powers, the region must now, on its own, resolve the political, economic, cultural, and societal problems that prevent it from accomplishing the next stage in the advance of civilization. There is enough in the traditional culture of Islam on the one hand and the modern experience of the Muslim peoples on the other, he explains, to provide the basis for an advance toward freedom in the true sense of that word.

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) was a British American historian and the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. Regarded as one of the West's leading scholars on the Middle East, he is the author of numerous books, including What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (2002) and Islam and the West (1993).