longwatch.blogg.se - Download free bernard lewis islam and the west pdf files

In 1990, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Lewis for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. The organization was formed as an academic society dedicated to promoting high standards of research and teaching in Middle Eastern and African studies and other related fields, with Lewis as Chairman of its academic council. In 1966, Lewis was a founding member of the learned society, Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), but in 2007 he broke away and founded Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) to challenge MESA, which the New York Sun noted as "dominated by academics who have been critical of Israel and of America's role in the Middle East". After retiring from Princeton in 1986, Lewis served at Cornell University until 1990. Consequently, Lewis's arrival at Princeton marked the beginning of the most prolific period in his research career during which he published numerous books and articles based on previously accumulated materials. The terms of his appointment were such that Lewis taught only one semester per year, and being free from administrative responsibilities, he could devote more time to research than previously. In 1974, aged 57, Lewis accepted a joint position at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, also located in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1963, Lewis was granted fellowship of the British Academy. In 1949, at the age of 33, he was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern History. After the war, he returned to SOAS, where he would remain for the next 25 years. ĭuring the Second World War, Lewis served in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and as a Corporal in the Intelligence Corps in 1940–41 before being seconded to the Foreign Office. He returned to SOAS in 1938 as an assistant lecturer in Islamic History. He undertook post-graduate studies at the University of Paris, where he studied with the orientalist Louis Massignon and earned the "Diplôme des Études Sémitiques" in 1937. Lewis also studied law, going part of the way toward becoming a solicitor, but returned to study Middle Eastern history. He earned his PhD three years later, also from SOAS, specializing in the history of Islam. In 1936, Lewis graduated from the School of Oriental Studies (now School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS) at the University of London with a BA in history with special reference to the Near and Middle East. Lewis became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1982. In 1947 he married Ruth Hélène Oppenhejm, with whom he had a daughter and a son. He became interested in languages and history while preparing for his bar mitzvah.

4 Views and influence on contemporary politicsīernard Lewis was born to middle-class British Jewish parents, Harry Lewis and the former Jane Levy, in Stoke Newington, London.

He argued that the deaths of the mass killings resulted from a struggle between two nationalistic movements, claiming that there is no proof of intent by the Ottoman government to exterminate the Armenian nation. įurthermore, Lewis notoriously denied the Armenian genocide. Lewis was also notable for his public debates with Edward Said, who accused Lewis and other orientalists of misrepresenting Islam and serving the purposes of Western imperialist domination, to which Lewis responded by defending Orientalism as a facet of humanism and accusing Said of politicizing the subject. However, his active support of the Iraq War and neoconservative ideals have since come under scrutiny. His advice was frequently sought by neoconservative policymakers, including the Bush administration. On a political level, Lewis is accused by his detractors with having revived the image of the cultural inferiority of Islam and of emphasizing the dangers of jihad. Others have argued Lewis's approach is essentialist and generalizing to the Muslim world, as well as his tendency to restate hypotheses that were challenged by more recent research. In 2007 Lewis was called "the West's leading interpreter of the Middle East".

After the war, he returned to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and was appointed to the new chair in Near and Middle Eastern history. Lewis served as a soldier in the British Army in the Royal Armoured Corps and Intelligence Corps during the Second World War before being seconded to the Foreign Office. Lewis's expertise was in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator.

Bernard Lewis, FBA ( – ) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies.