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naddie_reads 's review for:
A World Without Islam
by Graham E. Fuller
This was a great, if dense, study of a simple question Fuller decided to explore: "Would the world's current struggles and geopolitics issues have occurred if Islam never existed?"
The author explained how Islam came about and spread throughout the world, the rise and fall of Islamic empires, and the ensuing conflicts that shaped and contributed to the current landscape of politics in the 21st century. Fuller provided the nuances and context behind the history of the last few centuries' geopolitical issues to argue that even if Islam did not exist, the current strifes would have still likely occurred, but under another vehicle other than religion.
So, it took me almost two years to read this book due to various factors. I started reading this back in 2018 and read it on and off before putting it aside at 50% read for more than a few years before I decided to finally pick it up again. One of the reasons I had to put the book down was not because of the dense subject matter and history discussed—it was in the way it was told. This read like a scholars' work—or worse, a history textbook—more often than not, especially in the first part of the book. So it came off as exceedingly dry and lost my attention for a good year or so, heh. For that reason, I'm deducting one point from the rating (even if I don't always agree with the rating system when it comes to GR).
In the end, I'm glad I pushed through the end of the book, because it provided some great insights into the struggles that the Middle East—or "Muslim countries" as Fuller puts it—faced for the past several decades, some of the grievances even dating back to the previous millennium, which in turn gave rise to our current precarious state of existence.
A recommended read if you'd like to know the context behind some of the Muslims' ire when it comes to Bush's purported "War on Terror".
The author explained how Islam came about and spread throughout the world, the rise and fall of Islamic empires, and the ensuing conflicts that shaped and contributed to the current landscape of politics in the 21st century. Fuller provided the nuances and context behind the history of the last few centuries' geopolitical issues to argue that even if Islam did not exist, the current strifes would have still likely occurred, but under another vehicle other than religion.
So, it took me almost two years to read this book due to various factors. I started reading this back in 2018 and read it on and off before putting it aside at 50% read for more than a few years before I decided to finally pick it up again. One of the reasons I had to put the book down was not because of the dense subject matter and history discussed—it was in the way it was told. This read like a scholars' work—or worse, a history textbook—more often than not, especially in the first part of the book. So it came off as exceedingly dry and lost my attention for a good year or so, heh. For that reason, I'm deducting one point from the rating (even if I don't always agree with the rating system when it comes to GR).
In the end, I'm glad I pushed through the end of the book, because it provided some great insights into the struggles that the Middle East—or "Muslim countries" as Fuller puts it—faced for the past several decades, some of the grievances even dating back to the previous millennium, which in turn gave rise to our current precarious state of existence.
A recommended read if you'd like to know the context behind some of the Muslims' ire when it comes to Bush's purported "War on Terror".