Lewis frames fourteen centuries of Islam-West contact as a single binary struggle.

Evidence

The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries. It began with the advent of Islam, in the seventh century, and has continued virtually to the present day. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and counterattacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests. For the first thousand years Islam was advancing, Christendom in retreat and under threat. The new faith conquered the old Christian lands of the Levant and North Africa, and invaded Europe, ruling for a while in Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and even parts of France. The attempt by the Crusaders to recover the lost lands of Christendom in the east was held and thrown back, and even the Muslims’ loss of southwestern Europe to the Reconquista was amply compensated by the Islamic advance into southeastern Europe, which twice reached as far as Vienna. For the past three hundred years, since the failure of the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and the rise of the European colonial empires in Asia and Africa, Islam has been on the defensive, and the Christian and post-Christian civilization of Europe and her daughters has brought the whole world, including Islam, within its orbit. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1544

Categorization

• XREF: This is the civilizational-battle framing that Huntington and later critics (Said, Mamdani) directly contested; crucial document for the clash-of-civilizations genealogy. — connects to: Bernard Lewis reduced fourteen centuries of East-West to unchanging conflict. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 27; Lewis dates the Islam-West rivalry to the seventh century and its reversal to 1683 — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 216; Lewis located Muslim hostility in Islam rather than Western conduct — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 217 (+1 more)
• SHARE: For a scholar studying how the ‘Islam vs. the West’ frame was constructed, this shows Lewis’s telescoping of 1400 years of heterogeneous contact into one static rivalry.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Bernard Lewis reduced fourteen centuries of East-West to unchanging conflict. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 27; Lewis dates the Islam-West rivalry to the seventh century and its reversal to 1683 — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 216; Lewis located Muslim hostility in Islam rather than Western conduct — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 217 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Bernard Lewis reduced fourteen centuries of East-West to unchanging conflict. #corroborates (0.97) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 27