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Article: A shared history.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- November 27, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Peace Be upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence in the Middle East. By Zachary Karabell. Knopf, 352 pp., $26.95.
Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World. By Stephen O'Shea. Walker, 432 pp., $15.95 paperback.
SINCE THE END of the cold war, the status of Islam as a rival to "the West" has been fodder for scholarly analysis and popular deliberation. Many Muslims and non-Muslims assume that Islam must be at war with the West. Yet even a cursory examination reveals that Islam is an internally divided reality, not a monolith of pure evil or unsullied goodness.
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