[John Isbell]

It's also worth remembering the role of Islam, not Christianity, in preserving the Greek Classics, notably Aristotle, over the centuries. This despite what an Arab army famously did to the Library of Alexandria:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transm...Greek_Classics

Cheers,
John

[Orwn Acra]

Juster's review would have been better if he had, like John says, acknowledged that so much of what we consider to be classics of the Western canon are available to us only because Islamic scholars considered it important and worth saving. I think this is essential to note because it throws into question any simple East/West division. Our intellectual history is not a straight line; Christian cosmology comes, in part, through Islamic interpretations of Aristotle; the East can also claim ancient Rome and Greece as a foundation to its intellectual history; and Islam had its day of amazing innovation and progress and may have such a day again. In other words, by not acknowledging the subtleties of cultural interplay, Juster's review portrays as cartoonish a version of history as the book he criticizes does.

If only the West had repaid the favor when the Mongols sacked Baghdad and its rivers ran not red but ink black, so complete was the destruction of the city's libraries.

[Edited to add: having read more about the Claremont Institute, which published Juster's review, it is safe repeat Richard: the review "says as much about his personal beliefs and ideology as it does about the book in question."]

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

What Walter said. Juster's last review posted here was a extremely misleading piece on Jamison's Lowell biography which, coincidently, I finally had time to finish this semester. I doubt if anyone could show more misunderstanding of the nature of bipolar disease or more misrepresent a book's tone. Then again, maybe this will prove to be another interesting read that I might have missed.

[Michael Juster]

If you want to see how actual scholars in the field are responding to the review instead of wallowing in the usual ad hominem comments from the usual suspects, you are welcome to go to my Twitter site: @amjuster.

I do want to note that I wholeheartedly agree that Late Antique Islamic scholars played an important role in preserving Greek & Roman learning--but when you have 1800 words to discuss a book that distorts many centuries of history with frequent comparisons of the Catholic Church to ISIS--but makes no mention of Late Antique Islamic scholarship--you have to accept that you can't cram every worthwhile objection into the review.

By the way, my thoughts on Wendy Cope's new book should be out Tuesday in the LA Review of Books.

[John Isbell]

Michael: "wallowing in the usual ad hominem comments from the usual suspects": this is of course an ad hominem argument. As "the usual suspects" also damns one's critics without naming them, I'll note that my own unflattering comments on this new review, which exist upthread but might in all fairness have been more extensive, are limited to mentioning the neglected role of Islam in this story.

Cheers,
John

[Michael Juster]

I wasn't thinking of you, John. If you're curious, though, you can go back over past comments here on my writing & see the same kinds of personal attacks from the same handful of people over & over again.

By the way, the open-minded among you might be interested to see that History for Atheists & Dame Averil Cameron, one of the leading historians in the field, view Nixey's book similarly: https://historyforatheists.com/2017/...darkening-age/

[John Isbell]

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate your remark, and find your review broadly persuasive in its arguments.

Cheers,
John

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Ad hom would be something like "don't trust Juster's book review on a bipolar poet because I hear he doesn't wash his hands before he eats."

Pointing out that your agenda makes you write ridiculously foolish and/or demeaning things regarding subjects you willfully misunderstand to feed your own brand of moral outrage is just doing a review of your reviews that match the tone of your reviews. I am intimately involved with the subject you wrote about in the Lowell review, both academically and personally. Your scholarship on mental illness wasn't actual. It was absent.

[Michael Juster]

I have hired, promoted and extensively supported people who are bipolar, all of whom voluntarily disclosed their condition to me because they trusted me with that information. I have received national awards for my work on behalf of people with disabilities, including people with mental disabilities.

I don't believe, however, that a diagnosis of bipolar disease is a blanket excuse for violence against women. I don't believe Harvard & other institutions acted appropriately with Lowell by repeatedly exposing women to his sexual harassment & violence.

I also don't believe a family member by marriage writing a biography should be less than forthcoming about her relationship to her subject.

Other reviewers took positions similar to mine.

I don't believe that every word of Robert Lowell is pure genius. As with Lowell's behavior, his work was highly erratic, but I have never denied that he wrote some great poems.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Take a quick run through Juster's review. There isn't a section that isn't a personal attack on the writer with hyperbole and strongarm tactics. Even holocaust denial is brought in as an analogy. It adds almost nothing that wasn't already in critical reviewsin print except vitriol and poor argumentation. It is junk. And it is not ad hom to say so. What we should applaud are writers deeply critical of their home team's ideologies, willing to center their work on exposing the murderous periperhies from their own "truths" first. What Juster does is maintain the blinders for the horses of the home team. It isn't nuanced thought, it doesn't ask hard questions of its own certainties, and it doesn't portray the opposition honestly. It is junk.