This is a good, fairly concise introduction to the richly varied history of the Arab world. In comparison with the first edition of 1950, Lewis certainly has partially assimilated the critique on 19th and 20th century orientalism (which only viewed the Muslim world from Western eyes) and removed the worst deformations. But the book remains a bit unbalanced. Lewis zooms in almost entirely on the so-called heyday of Arab civilization, from the 7th to the 12th century, and the evolutions from then on are haphazardly treated in a few dozen pages. This has to do with the fact that the Islamic expansion afterwards was mainly a Turkish, Persian, Indian and East Asian case, and much less an Arab one. That distinction can certainly be made, but remains artificial, because also in the so-called flowering period the Islamic civilization (s) had various roots. Even in this updated edition from 1990, recent developments, and especially the emerging political Islamism, receive hardly any attention. ( )