Disordered World

Setting a New Course for the Twenty-First Century

By: Amin Maalouf, George Willer - translator

Narrated by: Kevin Pierce

Born into the Christian minority in Lebanon and since settled in France, Amin Maalouf claims a unique position in global conversation. His first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, was a critical and commercial success and remains in print after 20 years. In Disordered World, Maalouf combines his command of history with a critical perspective on contemporary culture, East and West - joining them with a fierce moral clarity and a propulsive style.

Examining tensions between the Arab and Western worlds, Maalouf sees something beyond a "clash of civilizations". Both cultures have their own continuity, integrity, and morality. Yet in our times, both have become exhausted and debased. The West has betrayed its values, even as it pushes democracy abroad. The Arab world, nostalgic for its golden era, has rushed toward radicalism. We fall short of ideological debate not only because we lack common ground, but because we are fast losing what ground we stood on. Maalouf looks at a century of confrontations between our cultures, culminating in the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet he turns to the global challenges we face today - climate change, financial collapse, humanitarian disaster - with remarkable hope that they may yet unite us in a bid to save what is truly common to us all. Intelligent, impassioned yet measured, Disordered World presents Maalouf's vision of renewed cohesion in our currently disordered world.

©2009 Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, English translation copyright 2011 by George Willer (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Couldn't put this book down.

Great book that contrasts the history and current challenge s between "the West" and "the Islamic World". Could not put this book down. Need to find more by this author.

Elegant and deep understanding of the world we live in

A tour de force as the historian Tom Holland would say. Comprehensive view of the dynamics that produced our world

Now looking to read a more recent book by Amine Malouf to see how he understands the developments in the last decade

Disappointing

I am disappointed, the analysis is shallow to say the least. Blaming Jamal Abdulnasser for all the disasters that followed in the middle East is one thing; Jamal had and still has so many critics; but to site the European model as the utopian one and the election of Barrack Obama and the American “democracy” as examples of what to hope for? without even touching on the rise of white supremacy and the dangers it poses on all humanity! Amin talks about America wars on the rest of the world as if it was a problem to be remedied, not as the major problem that it is and what it means and entails. I am left with “WHAT”