The myth of the primitive Arab culture
The author of The Map of Knowledge freely admits that her education was in Classics, so it was remiss in “non-Western” history. These gaps show up in the text of her book. For example: It helped that Sassanian culture was one of the most sophisticated and impressive on earth, and that Arab culture was young […]
Tales of the Arabian week
This summer I had the pleasure of spending a week in July visiting a Gulf nation which was not Saudi Arabia. It was so hot and humid that my glasses would fog over in the 110-degree weather (Fahrenheit). The reason I went was for a possible business opportunity. As someone who is an atheist from […]
Iraq: the model that wasn’t
The magazine Foreign Policy recently had a “sex” issue out. This issue is particularly famous for Mona Eltahaway’s jeremiad against Arab male culture, and their attitudes toward women. Over at bloggingheads.tv Charli Carpenter express…
Give the West a rest
I’m pretty critical of the tendency to fixate on the “West vs. the Rest” which is common today across the ideological and cultural spectrum. Frankly, I think Zach does it a little too much for my taste, but that’s a separate issue. Rather, I want to highlight this bizarre tendency to fixate on the West […]
When the ancients were wise
I picked up The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization on the run, as I was about go traveling somewhere. I didn’t look at the contents or even the jacket summary very closely. My interest specifically was to get to know a little more about the Abbassid House of Wisdom, which like […]