Book Review: Engaging the Muslim World by Juan Cole

July 8th, 2009 by zen

Once I saw an Iraqi tribal leader interviewed on al-Jazeera. He said. “There is good and bad in America”. I was struck by how pragmatic and realistic his response was, and how different it was from so much of the fundamentalist vigilantee propaganda about the United States posted on radical internet bulletin boards. If Washington could reach out to all Muslims and bring them around to a more nuanced -and clear-view, in which America was not simply demonized, it would be a major accomplishment. The point is not that they should see the West through rose colored glasses, but that they should be willing to see the good and bad.

That would represent a step up by an order of magnitude.

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  1. Lexington Green:

    July 8th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    "… when Cole is concentrating on the nuances of the Arab-Muslim world’s political-cultural lens, he is an illuminating and insightful analyst…"
    .
    In other words, just everybody, when he talks about what he actually knows about (for most people that = what they do for a living) he actually has something of value to say. 
    .
    (Lawyers see this all the time.  Expert witnesses are useful when they talk about their actual area of expertise.  Often, they try to go beyond that.  When they do, it is up to the other lawyer to beat the crap out of them on cross-examination.   Unfortunately, when you have a one-way medium like TV or print media "expert" commentary that is actually beyond the scope of expertise cannot be effectively rebutted in real time.  Blogs can in part make up for it, but not much.)

  2. zen:

    July 8th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    "In other words, just everybody, when he talks about what he actually knows about (for most people that = what they do for a living) he actually has something of value to say."
    .
    Bingo. Cole has a wealth of knowledge on the Middle East and he writes clearly and eschews jargon and generally, on such topics, unless Israel is involved, is cautious and methodical. When Cole veers into other fields, like US-Soviet relations, he becomes increasingly polemical ( Cole has real issues with Ronald Reagan). However, as the style is sort of a conversational essay, you will get analysis, factual information and partisan opinion blended together. I enjoyed the book but it pushes from a different political zone than the one in which I reside.

  3. Lexington Green:

    July 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    Plus, there is a sort of general rule of human behavior, which says that you get light when the person knows what they are talking about, i.e. rationality, no matter how impassioned they may be.  But you get heat when they are just going off about something.   Cole has too much respect for the value of his own field to just be a blowhard about it. 

  4. Jay:

    July 8th, 2009 at 10:55 pm

    re: The pragmatic "good Americans bad American’s response." Somewhat related, the Daily Show ran a "Jihad Walking" bit where Jason Jones quizzes American’s on Iran and Iranian’s on America. No doubt this sort of thing can be edited to fit a preferred conclusion, but it was both comical and quite telling of American ignorance and misconception of Iran. 

  5. tdaxp:

    July 9th, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    I would be interested in Dr. Cole’s view of solar and oil.

    As I understand it, solar electricity is an energy source, while oil is an energy transportation device. That is, solar may be less or more efficient than coal or nuclear in producing electricity, but the concern wrt transportation is making it portable.

    That is why ethanol makes sense, btw. It is not very energy efficient, but that’s not the point (neither is oil). It is a non-petrocarbon energy transportation device, however.

  6. Alice:

    July 10th, 2009 at 2:48 am

    Bioenergy, such as biomass to alcohol, biomass to electricity, or biomass to hydrocarbons via  Fischer Tropsch catalytic synthesis is more likely to displace oil faster than photovoltaics.    But then Cole clearly doesn’t know what he is talking about outside strictly technical aspects of Islam and the middle east.

    Oil is simply stored solar energy, as are coal and biomass.  Oil and coal are more concentrated sources of energy than biomass, but then they have had quite a long time to concentrate.   Bioenergy can be grown almost anywhere, including thousands of miles from the nearest source of fossil fuels.