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Title: Islam : A Short History by KAREN ARMSTRONG ISBN: 0-8129-6618-X Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 06 August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.59 (91 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An interesting first look at Islam
Comment: This is an interesting beginning, along with Paul Johnson's look at the Renaissance, to a potenially fascinating series, the Modern Library Chronicle Books. The short format can not lead to anything substantial, obviously, but Karen Armstrong has taken an effective approach to the work. The first part of the book is basically a chronological history that whisks the reader through almost fifteen hundred years of Islamic history. It can be confusing if one, such as I, is encountering many of these names and ideas for the first time. It did make me want to search out more specific books on Islam on certain of the people and topics that were of particular interest through reading Ms. Armstong's book. It is a good overview.
The last part of the book borrows very heavily from Ms. Armstrong's books, including the wonderful Battle for God. If you have read her other books, the ideas will be familiar to you. If not, you will probably find something new to think about. It is interesting to have a narrative history tied to a well-written selection of essays that amount to an intelligent plea for understanding of other traditions. This is a wonderful book that provides a good beginning for a look at Islam, with a well-chosen bibliography to lead the reader to a fuller understanding of this many varied topic.
Rating: 4
Summary: Goes down easy...
Comment: Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God, writes well. She has a gift with words and a style that eases the reader through very difficult material.
I was highly enthused when I first got hold of this book. Like her other books, it is easy to read and highly engaging. She summarizes a very complex history nicely and covers major points of this history in encapsulated prose. If you are looking for a good overview of their history this is a great place to start.
Now for the bad news. She, in attempting to make the book palatable and not bogged down in theology and the 'warts and all' of historical detail, only skims the surface. I was left wondering what went wrong with Islam. If the view of Islam presented here is the 'true' Islam, how do we grapple with what it has become (at least its presentation in the more popular Western media outlets)? This book does not seek to answer those questions. Some have accused her of 'whitewashing' Islam's history. I suppose we must look at her intent. I believe she has attempted to write a good entry-level book in order to engage the reader to the positives rather than the negatives (which are much too easy to find) in order to even desire to understand it rather than attack it outright. In this she has succeeded quite well.
If you wish to understand the deeper meanings and varied histories of Islam's history, you may start here but do not be fooled. This book only scratches the surface.
Rating: 3
Summary: Islam and democracy: an imposible goal?
Comment: Other reviewers have noticed, better than me, the flaws of the book, regarding the consistency of it - is not all only history -.
My point is the historical evolution of the arab political states. The review Ms. Armstrong makes shows that only in the XXth century arab nations tried democracy as a way of goverment, but, as Ms. Armstrong notes, the western countries create setbacks when the results of the elections don't please them (the sad example of France foreign policy and Algeria and Tunisia in the mid nineties).
I think that the future of the region and of their relations towards western countries will depend deeply on the acceptance, by the western leaders, that the region and their people need to follow their own history of mistakes and learning, and still they do that way, is right they have enough freedom to develop their very particular ways of political organization. The western modernization the region needs is the western modernization their people could accept, at their own pace. I have the feeling the besides all our kind manners and politically right words, the western political elites think like Mr. Belusconi,head of italian goverment: Our culture is superior. That systematic underestimation of a just different way of being and acting towards life and other people should produce only troubles. And it does.
Islam and democracy is a posible goal only if the western world respects more the arab world than before, at the same time they cooperate together as equal partners. Other ways - like imposing "our" standards, with no regard to the history of the countries and their colective values - produce the present that we live now and that we watch at TV news.
The western world is part of the problems of the arab world. And fortunately, an active part of their solutions too.
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Title: Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0062508865 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 10 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0345384563 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 09 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0345391691 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Buddha by Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0670891932 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Spiral Staircase : My Climb out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0375413189 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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