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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2679 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I'm looking for a audiobook, series of audiobooks, or podcast that gives a historical survey of the middle east starting with the founding of Islam. Basically I'd like to have an AP Euro/AP US level of detail about the region. Normally my proceedure for this is to look for a "History of $REGION" podcast, but I found that I felt I couldn't trust the "History of Islam" podcast I found because it was done by a believer and I wasn't sure how much that distorted the narrative (I didn't get the sense he was a propagandist, just had some fairly obvious biases). This part of history seems uniquely political, so I'm afraid I would run into the same issue if I just bought a random book on the subject.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Ideally this would be by a non-believer. Even more ideally, by a non-believer from quite a while ago (somehow I feel like people might have been able to be more objective about it before 9/11).

I can't think of the exact title off the top of my head, but the Great Courses series did a history of US-Middle East relations starting around 1900. If you don't have a subscription, it's available on the high seas and I can find a link if you DM me.

I think I'm looking more for older history. Thanks though!

A related, broader question: Say I want the answer to the question "what's the best serious book/books about "? What's the best way to do that? Google works fine, is something better?

Bernard Lewis sort of fits the bill. Looks like only his post-9/11 books are available as audiobooks.

"The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" by Bernard Lewis sounds like what you're looking for but there's no audiobook and I haven't actually read it.

It's not as commonly covered because there's a lot of pressure to play down the enmity between Islam and Christiandom.

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