Dr. Lewis had no qualms about hard-edged policies toward the Middle East, once famously advising “get tough or get out,” in what some have dubbed the Lewis Doctrine. Beyond the polarizing arguments in which he was swept up, Dr. Lewis was a man of expansive intellectual appetites. His tone grew more serious in subsequent years as he warned that the Middle East may increasingly breed radicalism and anti-Western fervor. Firing back, Dr. Lewis accused Said of spewing an “unsavory mixture of sneer and smear, bluster and innuendo.”Said’s views mostly gained the upper hand in academic circles, leaving Dr. Lewis overshadowed in many college syllabuses. “The Arabs in History” (1950) and “The Middle East and the West” (1964) helped cement his academic standing.

Source: Washington Post May 19, 2018 23:15 UTC