Free Republic

The passing of Bernard Lewis last week at the age of 101 recalls to mind perhaps his most famous book title about the Muslim world, What Went Wrong? But maybe a successor of sorts has been found in Duke University economist Timur Kuran, who has a long article forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Literature that paints a pretty bleak picture of the economic and social structure of Islamic nations. Just check out the abstract of the article, which is bland in language but harsh in its conclusions:

Three days later, CNN just ran a modified version of the the Major Garrett story that broke earlier this week. The CNN caption was "What Went Wrong". It aired around 4:30 PM (CST). The segment discussed how Governor Blanco resisted the proposal to federalize the relief effort. It even aired the same footage of Mayor Nagin criticizing the Governor for wanting 24 hours to think over the proposal. The segment also contained commentary by Jamie McIntyre (CNN's Pentagon correspondent) and Donald Rumfeld. Rumsfeld's major point was that for the federal government to enter a state's territory over the objections of...

The way Muslim apologists speak of Bernard Lewis one might believe they think him the Devil incarnate. Famed anti-Orientalist Edward Said, for one, never missed an opportunity to execrate Lewis. Intrigued by all this calumny I picked up a copy of Lewis’ latest book, What Went Wrong, in which Lewis cursorily examines Islamic civilization, trying to tell us, well, what went wrong. I’d like to say I found out what it was, but I didn’t. Lewis never answered the question. While he thoroughly details the historical problems Muslim societies have faced when confronting with the modern West, he doesn't dig...