Paul Berman's New Intellectual Epic

Paul Berman sent me an advance copy of his forthcoming book The Flight of the Intellectuals, which will be released later this month, about the failure of many Western intellectuals to grapple with the threat radical Islam poses not only to themselves and their own societies, but also, and perhaps especially, to liberals and moderates in Islamic societies.

I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I can tell you right now that his chapters in the first third of the book about German foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa during World War II are worth the price of purchase alone. He has written about this before, as have others, including me, but in this book he excavates all kinds of fresh material from dusty old archives that is as clarifying and eerily relevant as it is disturbing.

I’ll have more to say about this later, and I will also probably interview him, but for now, pre-order a copy. Trust me.