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Middle East Pundits and their Mainly Worthless Prophecies

One may wonder why we bother to have Middle East experts at all, since their record is hardly better than that of the Sovietologists. Bernard Lewis is an exception.

Bernard Lewis standing in his study holding a French newspaper in 1990. Marianne Barcellona/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images.

Bernard Lewis standing in his study holding a French newspaper in 1990. Marianne Barcellona/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images.
Response
Robert Irwin
June 8 2016
About the author

Robert Irwin, a British novelist and scholar of medieval Islam, is the Middle East editor of the Times Literary Supplement. His most recent novel is Wonders Will Never Cease.

First, through the good offices of Mosaic, let me wish Bernard Lewis, my former thesis supervisor, a happy one-hundredth birthday! Next, let me commend Martin Kramer’s “The Return of Bernard Lewis” to readers present and future.

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More about: Bernard Lewis, History & Ideas, Islamism, Middle East

 
 
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