Description
Dismantling the myths that divide Islam and the West, this cutting-edge work of critical thinking proposes new ways to reread Islamic and world histories.
Extending from the front-page news coverage of our daily lives back into the deepest and most revelatory histories of the last two hundred years and earlier, Hamid Dabashi's The End of Two Illusions is a daring, provocative, and groundbreaking work that dismantles the most dangerous delusions manufactured between two vastly fetishized abstractions: "Islam" and "the West." With this book, Dabashi shows how the civilizational divides imagined between these two cosmic binaries have defined their entanglement-in ways that have nothing to do with the lived experiences of either Muslims or the diverse and changing communities scarcely held together by the myth of "the West."
Through detailed historical and contemporary analysis, The End of Two Illusions untangles the motivations that produced this global fiction. Dabashi demonstrates how "the West" was an ideological commodity and civilizational mantra invented during the European Enlightenment, serving as an epicenter for the rise of globalized capitalist modernity. In turn, Orientalist ideologues went around the world manufacturing equally illusory abstractions in the form of inferior civilizations in India, China, Africa, Latin America, and the Islamic world. The result was the projection of "Islam and the West" as the prototype of a civilizational hostility that has given false explanations and flawed prognoses of our contemporary history, with weaponized Islamophobia on one side and militant Islamism on the other as its most palpable manifestations. Dabashi argues it is long past time to dismantle this dangerous liaison, expose and overcome its perilous delusions, and reimagine the world beyond its shimmering mirage. The End of Two Illusions is the most iconoclastic work of critical thought and scholarship to emerge in recent memory, clearing the way toward a far more liberating imaginative geography of the world we share.
About the Author
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among his most recent books are Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire; Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest; and Europe and Its Shadows: Coloniality after Empire.
Reviews
"Dabashi makes a compelling claim in the epistemic violence created by "The West and Islam" that fits suitably in the ongoing work of decolonial scholarship." * Reading Religion *
"The precise and thoughtful interdisciplinary approach in The End of Two Illusions offers a vital contribution to perspectives on international relations, conflict, and dialogue. This text should be read by anyone involved or interested in understanding the reality of global political and cultural relationships in the twenty-first century." * Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies *
Book Information
ISBN 9780520376922
Author Hamid Dabashi
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 30mm
Extending from the front-page news coverage of our daily lives back into the deepest and most revelatory histories of the last two hundred years and earlier, Hamid Dabashi's The End of Two Illusions is a daring, provocative, and groundbreaking work that dismantles the most dangerous delusions manufactured between two vastly fetishized abstractions: "Islam" and "the West." With this book, Dabashi shows how the civilizational divides imagined between these two cosmic binaries have defined their entanglement-in ways that have nothing to do with the lived experiences of either Muslims or the diverse and changing communities scarcely held together by the myth of "the West."
Through detailed historical and contemporary analysis, The End of Two Illusions untangles the motivations that produced this global fiction. Dabashi demonstrates how "the West" was an ideological commodity and civilizational mantra invented during the European Enlightenment, serving as an epicenter for the rise of globalized capitalist modernity. In turn, Orientalist ideologues went around the world manufacturing equally illusory abstractions in the form of inferior civilizations in India, China, Africa, Latin America, and the Islamic world. The result was the projection of "Islam and the West" as the prototype of a civilizational hostility that has given false explanations and flawed prognoses of our contemporary history, with weaponized Islamophobia on one side and militant Islamism on the other as its most palpable manifestations. Dabashi argues it is long past time to dismantle this dangerous liaison, expose and overcome its perilous delusions, and reimagine the world beyond its shimmering mirage. The End of Two Illusions is the most iconoclastic work of critical thought and scholarship to emerge in recent memory, clearing the way toward a far more liberating imaginative geography of the world we share.
About the Author
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among his most recent books are Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire; Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest; and Europe and Its Shadows: Coloniality after Empire.
Reviews
"Dabashi makes a compelling claim in the epistemic violence created by "The West and Islam" that fits suitably in the ongoing work of decolonial scholarship." * Reading Religion *
"The precise and thoughtful interdisciplinary approach in The End of Two Illusions offers a vital contribution to perspectives on international relations, conflict, and dialogue. This text should be read by anyone involved or interested in understanding the reality of global political and cultural relationships in the twenty-first century." * Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies *
Book Information
ISBN 9780520376922
Author Hamid Dabashi
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 590g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 30mm
