Cultural Schizophrenia: Islamic Societies Confronting the West (Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East) FROM THE PUBLISHER
Professor Daryush Shayegan's book is a major contribution to what is perhaps the most critical debate within the Muslim world today: the relationship between its own culture and the influence of Western modernity. Based on examples ranging from Iran to Morocco, the author portrays a society he defines as peripheral - bound by a slavish adherence to its own glorified history, its "Tradition" - yet facing an external reality that derives from the West. The meeting of these two incompatible worlds leads to a profound distortion not only in how the Muslim world sees the West but, more importantly, in how it sees itself. Shayegan draws on a vast range of cultural experiences (from China and Japan to India and Latin America) in analyzing the type of mentality that is chained to its history. Sources as diverse as Jung and Octavio Paz widen the scope of this illuminating text.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
Using examples ranging from Iran to Morocco, the author discusses how the meeting of two incompatible worlds leads to a profound distortionnot only in how the Muslim world sees the West, but in how it sees itself. Fifteen chapters discuss the stages that lead to the distortions: the split, the ontological displacement, the field of distortions, and social foundations of the distortions. Previously published in French, Turkish, Spanish and Arabic, this is the first English edition. No subject index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
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