Ever since the paradigmatic postulates by Samuel P. Huntington on the Clash of Civilizations in outlining the configuration of conflict following the demise of the Soviet Union and its ideology, the relations between Europe and North America with the Middle East and the Islamic world at large have become even more controversial.
Michael Curtis in this book examines the evolution of West European intellectual and ideological perception of the Orient and its socio-economic and political developments ever since the rise of Islam. He does so by examining the works of major European thinkers especially Montesquieu, Burke, Tocqueville, James and John Stuart Mill, Marx and Engels, and last but not least Max Weber. What stand out are the constant themes confronting Western Europe in its encounter with Islam and the wider world of India and China, an encounter given salience by the political, military and economic expansion of France and England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in these areas. These themes can be summarized in the attempt to explain the comparative evolution of non-Western societies since the Enlightenment in light of the processes of political and economic modernization shaping Western Europe from the Renaissance onward. These writers also had an interest in the relevance of these themes to debates about the societal and political developments during their own times, such as class conflicts, industrialization, colonialism, religious controversies and institutional arrangements.
Curtis focuses implicitly on a seminal methodological question namely, why are they “different” from us, which can also be turned around to ask why are we different from them. Some of these writers could be faulted with substantive deficiencies in their sometime meaningless generalizations about the cultures and civilizations of the Middle East, India and China. For example, Marx and Engels stand out in their monochromatic approach to the subject of the non-Western world with historical materialism, overlooking and disregarding religious ideologies and their influence on social and ethnic conflicts. If Curtis could be faulted for anything, it is for having overlooked critically these weaknesses on the part of his main theorists' arguments that are summarized in his work. Some never seem to have noticed the differences between the Ottoman and Persian political systems and their deep-seated religious rivalry, nor the cleavages in the subcontinent characterizing the Hindu-Islamic antagonistic and sometimes violent confrontations.
As Curtis's title suggests, the ongoing thematic thread is the notion of despotism and the relative absence of civil society in the Islamic, Indian and Chinese worlds. These arguments are certainly relevant to the contemporary debates in the academic and policy-making world on democratization, institutional developments, economic modernization and human rights concerning the so-called “Third World.” The concerns of a John Stuart Mill or Tocqueville about representative government, for example, in the duty of Britain and France to foster the capacity for self-government, have a familiar ring today about the European and American presence and role as shown in the many conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, North Africa, Somalia and Yemen. The aversion of Islamic societies toward the separation of church and state and the role of women in societal development are current themes that go back to the concerns of the many writers and theorists that Curtis focuses on. Curtis also points out in defense of the Orientalists that their arguments were not necessarily an apology for colonialism and imperialism as implied by self-serving critics of Euro-American civilization but rather displayed genuine concerns, intellectual curiosity and valid hypotheses about the Orient. This certainly stands out for Max Weber whose theories have not only influenced the methodology of comparative politics and political sociology but are still relevant and valid to date.
Curtis conclusively debunks the notion that Orientalism was merely a self-serving interpretation of the East to justify colonialism and imperialism and reiterates the notion that historically Europe was more often than not the object of Islamic aggression. Of all the writers surveyed by Curtis, some stand out: John Stuart Mill and Tocqueville on the issue of liberty and self-government and their universal significance and Max Weber whose methodology is still relevant to the study of the Orient and non-Western societies.
This book integrates intellectual and political history, weaving its themes into a coherent whole relevant to contemporary notions and debates in the field. What seems to stand out in this field of study is the conflict between the various strands of Islam and their national territorial expressions in their confrontations between each other and with other civilizations and religious traditions.
It is finally relevant to note that Orientalism focused initially on oriental despotism characterizing, among other areas, India. The evolution of the subcontinent seems to indicate the Islamic component of the Mogul Empire, Pakistan and Kashmir, have by far more difficulties in adjusting to and accepting the modern rational political world that now characterizes the Hindu component, the Republic of India. Pakistan and India were conceived through the partition of the British Indian Empire, because of the refusal of the Islamic component to accept a modern secular state. It should be the start for a deeper analysis of the validity of some of the ideas and perspectives of the Orientalists and their notions of oriental despotism.
