tings. In approaching the Middle East in terms of a historiography, Lewis shows how different ideas and attitudes toward this region developed over time and how the changes were expressed in historical writing.
One of the issues he examines at length is the problem of Palestine, beginning with the derivation of the name from Philistine and changes in the geography of the area and so in the region identified by this name. Palestine was a Roman province. The Arab conquest came in the seventh century, and the dual Palestines that then existed were maintained and administered as before. The region passed from one conqueror to another over the centuries, along with other parts of the Arab world. Lewis carries the story of Palestine up to the end of the British Mandate in 1948--he does not write about the current state of the Middle East but instead shows what forces have existed through history and so leaves it to the reader to see how these forces might be continuing to this day.
In addition, the approach taken by Lewis shows that Islam did not e
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