Bernard Lewis

This article is about the historian. For other uses, see Bernard Lewis (disambiguation).

Bernard Lewis
Lewis in 2012
Born(1916-05-31)31 May 1916
London, England
Died19 May 2018(2018-05-19) (aged 101)
Voorhees Township, New Jersey, U.S.
NationalityBritish
American
Spouse(s)Ruth Hélène Oppenhejm
(married 1947–1974)
Children2
AwardsFellow of the British Academy
Harvey Prize
Irving Kristol Award
Jefferson Lecture
National Humanities Medal
Academic background
Alma materSOAS (BA, PhD)
University of Paris
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian
InstitutionsSOAS
Princeton University
Cornell University
Doctoral studentsFeroz Ahmad
Main interestsMiddle Eastern studies, Islamic studies
Notable works
InfluencedHeath W. Lowry, Fouad Ajami

Bernard Lewis, FBA[1] (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British-American historian specialized in Oriental studies.[2] He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis's expertise was in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.

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. 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.

In 2007, Lewis was called "the West's leading interpreter of the Middle East".[3] Others have said 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. On a political level, Lewis's detractors say he revived the image of the cultural inferiority of Islam and of emphasizing the dangers of jihad.[4] His advice was frequently sought by neoconservative policymakers, including the Bush administration.[5] His active support of the Iraq War and neoconservative ideals have since come under scrutiny.[6][7][8][9][10][11]

Lewis was notable for his public debates with Edward Said, who said Lewis was a Zionist apologist and an Orientalist who "demeaned" Arabs, misrepresented Islam, and promoted Western imperialism,[12][13] to which Lewis responded by saying Orientalism was a facet of humanism and that Said was politicizing the subject.[14][15]

Lewis was also known for denying the Armenian Genocide. His argument that there was no evidence of a deliberate genocide carried out against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire is rejected by other historians.[16][17][18] He said that the mass killings resulted from a mutual struggle between two nationalistic movements, a view that has been criticized as "ahistorical."[19]

  1. ^ "Professor Bernard Lewis". The British Academy. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  2. ^ "Bernard Lewis, Scholar and Political Advisor, Dead At 101". The Jerusalem Post. Jerusalem. 20 May 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  3. ^ Abrahmson, James L. (8 June 2007). "Will the West – and the United States – Go the Distance?". American Diplomacy. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  4. ^ König, Daniel (2015). "Arabic-Islamic Records". Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-873719-3. OCLC 913853067.
  5. ^ Weisberg, Jacob (14 March 2007). "AEI's weird celebration". Slate. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  6. ^ Neocons Gather To Fete Iraq War Godfather Bernard Lewis, The Forward
  7. ^ Bernard Lewis revises Bernard Lewis (says he opposed invasion of Iraq!), Mondoweiss
  8. ^ How neoconservatives led US to war in Iraq, The National (Abu Dhabi)
  9. ^ Migdal, Joel (2014). Shifting Sands the United States in the Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-231-53634-9.
  10. ^ Ahmad, Muhammad (2014). The road to Iraq: the making of a neoconservative war. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-9305-4.
  11. ^ Chaudet, Didier (2016). When Empire Meets Nationalism: Power Politics in the US and Russia. City: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-76253-8.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference said was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Bernard Lewis obituary". TheGuardian.com. 6 June 2018.
  14. ^ Kramer, Martin (1999). "Bernard Lewis". Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. Vol. 1. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 719–20. Archived from the original on 27 December 2010. Retrieved 23 May 2006.
  15. ^ Edward W. Said; Oleg Grabar; Bernard Lewis (12 August 1982). "Orientalism: An Exchange". New York Review of Books. 29 (13).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Baer 2020, p. 141.
  18. ^ Auron 2003, p. 230.
  19. ^ Ronald Grigor Suny; Fatma Müge Göçek; Norman M. Naimark, eds. (2011). A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 31–33. ISBN 978-0-19-978104-1.