Occidentalism

The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies

By: Avishai Margalit, Ian Buruma

Narrated by: Nigel Patterson

Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

We generally understand "radical Islam" as a purely Islamic phenomenon, but Buruma and Margalit show that while the Islamic part of radical Islam certainly is, the radical part owes a primary debt of inheritance to the West. Whatever else they are, al Qaeda and its ilk are revolutionary anti-Western political movements, and Buruma and Margalit show us that the bogeyman of the West who stalks their thinking is the same one who has haunted the thoughts of many other revolutionary groups, going back to the early 19th century.

In this genealogy of the components of the anti-Western worldview, the same oppositions appear again and again: the heroic revolutionary versus the timid, soft bourgeois; the rootless, deracinated cosmopolitan living in the Western city, cut off from the roots of a spiritually healthy society; the sterile Western mind, all reason and no soul; the machine society, controlled from the center by a cabal of insiders - often Jews - pulling the hidden levers of power versus an organically knit-together one, a society of "blood and soil."

The anti-Western virus has found a ready host in the Islamic world for a number of legitimate reasons, they argue, but in no way does that make it an exclusively Islamic matter.

©2004 Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

5-Star Quality - Timely Book

The voice talent is top level - Nigel Patterson. Clear and Intelligent Voice

What the enemies of the West, think about the West. The book itself is totally unexpected and supports it's ideas amazing well across cultures and topics. You will read about details of Japan and China that are usually not explored. This book explores them from a fresh perspective.

Then there is hugely interesting work on Russia, Middle East, and September 11. The 9/11 content echoes the Peter Thiel essay, Straussian Moment, but is totally unique and worthy.

Oh and the Russia content. Written so well and in a Dutch style. I am sparing you the punch line, it's sad but we are witnessing, so no need to mention it. Read this if you like this topic.