Near Eastern Studies

NES Faculty

Bernard Lewis
Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus

I was educated in the University of London, primarily but not entirely at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where I took both my B.A. (Honors in History) and my Ph.D. My B.A. degree was in History with special reference to the Near and Middle East; my Ph.D. in the History of Islam. I also studied Law, and went part of the way towards becoming a barrister, but decided that I didn't like it, and returned to study, and later teach, Middle Eastern History. It was a choice that I have never regretted. I also did part of my graduate work in the University of Paris, and spent some months touring the Middle East. I received my first teaching appointment in 1938, as an assistant lecturer (the lowest form of human life in British universities) in Islamic History at the School of Oriental and African Studies. With the exception of the years 1940 to 1945, when I was otherwise engaged, I remained a University teacher until my formal retirement in 1986, and, in a less formal sense, ever since. Until 1974, I taught at the University of London; since 1974 at Princeton.

Like most university teachers, I have had a somewhat narrow field in which I conducted my own research, a rather wider one in which I was willing to assist others undertake research, and a still wider one in which I was willing to risk undergraduate teaching. My earliest interest was in medieval Islamic History, especially that of religious movements such as the Ismailis and Assassins. The war years awakened and nourished an interest in the contemporary Middle East, which I have retained ever since. My major research interest for some time past has been the history of the Ottoman Empire. At the present time I am trying to combine all three by studying the history of the relations between Europe and Islam from early through Ottoman to modern times.

As an emeritus professor I teach no courses -- that is, not at Princeton, though an occasional invitation gives me the opportunity to ply my trade elsewhere. At the moment of my retirement, seven students were preparing dissertations under my guidance. Six of them--Müge Göçek, Leslie Peirce, Amy Singer, Shaun Marmon, Corinne Blake and Dina Le Gall--have obtained their doctorates. Of these Müge Göçek is teaching at Michigan, Leslie Peirce at Cornell, Amy Singer at the University of Tel-Aviv, Corinne Blake at Rowan College, Shaun Marmon in the Religions Department here and Dina Le Gall at Macalester College in Minnesota. Their dissertation topics were as follows: Muge Göcek - "Toward a Theory of Westernization and Social Change: Eighteenth & Nineteenth Century Ottoman Society" (1988); Leslie Peirce - "The Imperial Harem: Gender and Power in the Ottoman Empire 1520-1656" (1989); Amy Singer - "Ottoman Officials and Palestinian Peasants: Rural Administration in the Sancak of Jerusalem in the Mid-Sixteenth Century" (1989); Shaun Marmon - "The Eunuchs of the Prophet: Space, Time, and Gender in Islamic Society" (1990); Corinne Blake - "Training Arab-Ottoman Bureaucrats: Syrian Graduates of the Mulkiye Mektebi 1890-1920" (1990); Dina Le Gall - "The Ottoman Naqshbandiyya in the Pre-Mujaddidi Phase: A Study in Islamic Religious Culture and Its Transmission" (1991).

Some representative publications:

The Arabs in History, London 1950;

The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London and New York 1961

The Assassins, London 1967

The Muslim Discovery of Europe, New York 1982

The Political Language of Islam, Chicago 1988

Race and Slavery in the Middle East: an Historical Enquiry, New York 1990

Islam and the West, New York, 1993

Islam in History, 2nd edition, Chicago, 1993

The Shaping of the Modern Middle East, New York, 1994

Cultures in Conflict, New York, 1994

The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, New York, 1995

The Future of the Middle East, London, 1997

The Multiple Identities of the Middle East, London, 1998

A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of life, letters and history, New York, 2000

Tel: 609.258.4280
Fax: 609.258.1242