欧宝娱乐

It's so refreshing to read about a topic like this by a master of serious scholarship.

The work is a bit disconnected -- it's an assortment of essays loosely focused around setting straight misconceptions about Islamic history. And a fair amount of its sometimes dry, microscopic focus is of real interest to specialists only.

However, part VIII ("New Events") -- especially the pieces "Behind the Rushdie Affair" and "The Middle East Crisis in Historical Perspective" -- is so wonderfully insightful and thought-provoking (while remaining scrupulously, unflappably disciplined and balanced in delivery), that it alone is well worth the journey through the meandering sub-topics of the volume.

Would that all "academic" writing were of this quality and long-lasting value.