Bernard Lewis er bemerkelsesverdig av flere grunner; sine kunnskaper, sin unike status og medfølgende tilgang til mange innflytelsesrike mennesker, og gitt hans høye alder har han mye å fortelle. Det gjør han i selvbiografi.

Etter 9/11 var Lewis en av de få som kunne gi en forklaring på hvordan angrepet var mulig, hva som lå bak. Han ble dermed katapulert til berømmelse på no time, og bøkene utkom i store opplag. Han ble også innkalt til samtaler i Det hvite hus. Det gjorde ham til en av de grå eminenser, som ga Bush den ideologiske ballast, i det venstreliberale miljøet.

It’s when Lewis turns to the Bush presidency that we get a serious attempt to set the record straight for the first time. Lewis explains that he did know Vice President Cheney, and did give some briefings in his office; he was also once invited, in the aftermath of 9/11, to “a small group discussion” with President Bush. But his main argument, he says, was about the need to support the opposition in Iran; he did not call for the invasion of Iraq. Indeed, in the years following Desert Storm (the inconclusive expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait), he had advocated something quite different: not a Western invasion, but Western support for the northern zone of Iraq which, operating outside Saddam’s control, wanted to proclaim itself the “Free Government of Iraq” and bring down the regime from within.

Unbiased readers of this book will accept Lewis’s account, which comes complete with excerpts from his emails to the White House. But at the same time they will see why some people could imagine that he was guiding the policy-making of the US president. Here is a man who has a three-hour chat with the Shah of Iran on p187, tea in Golda Meir’s kitchen on p205, lunch with King Hussein of Jordan on p217, and several dinners with Pope John Paul II on p253. Readers may feel positively miffed that he has only a brief meeting with Nasser, and just one lunch with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

This is not what the engagements diary of your average history professor looks like. So what made it possible? Lewis begins and ends his autobiography by saying that he has been “fortunate”. If you put his immense energy and talent to one side, you can agree that he has had extraordinarily good luck.

Notes On A Century by Bernard Lewis: review
‘Notes On A Century’ is the glittering memoir of the historian Bernard Lewis