Buntzie ellis churchill biography gilbert

Notes on a Century: Reflections of Middle East Historian by Bernard Lewis and Buntzie Ellis Churchill. Published by Viking Adult, New York. 2012, 400 pages.

Being involved in thinking about the Middle East for the Department of Defense, I always make time for any of Bernard Lewis’s books on the region.

Churchill biography books

It is entirely natural for readers, myself included, to disagree with aspects of his analysis, but that should not preclude us from availing ourselves on his long-time observations of the Arab and Islamic world. His latest book takes readers into several decades of his work and is an autobiography of the famous Princeton scholar.

Among the more interesting aspects of his recollections was the Nazi Middle East expert Dr. Fritz Grobba contacting the Saudi embassy in Vichy France as a venue to explore intelligence sources against the British, whose colonial legacy was a source of mistrust among Arabs.

British military intelligence, with Lewis playing his part as an analytic tra