What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response is a book by Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...

 released in January 2002, shortly after the September 11 terrorist attack

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, but written shortly before. The nucleus of this book appeared as an article published in The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

in January 2002.

The book's thesis is that throughout recent history, specifically beginning with the failure of the second Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 siege of Vienna

Battle of Vienna

The Battle of Vienna took place on 11 and 12 September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months...

 in 1683, the Islamic world has failed to modernize or to keep pace with the Western world in a variety of respects, and that this failure has been seen by many within the Islamic world as having allowed Western powers to acquire a disastrous position of dominance over those regions.

External links

• The original article (Abstract plus first two paragraphs)
• Description by the Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  
• Ismail Küpeli: Was ging schief beim 'Untergang des Morgenlandes'? Eine exemplarische Sichtung der Geschichtsdarstellung von Bernard Lewis. München, 2007, ISBN 978-3638754576 (Critical book about "What Went Wrong" in German)
• Booknotes interview with Lewis on What Went Wrong?, December 30, 2001.