ABSTRACT

Last January and into part of February, I spent a month in the United States at the invitation of ten of the most famous universities in America as well as of six prestigious research centres specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. The purpose of this article is not to summarize the lectures I delivered at these universities or the long discussions that followed. The full texts of the lectures and transcripts of the discussions will appear in a book currently being prepared for publication by one of the universities I visited. Rather, my purpose is to record some of the impressions I formed during my visit, lessons drawn from a trip on which I was privileged to address over a thousand of the top American academics and experts concerned with the Middle East and with studying its past, present and future from every angle of scientific research, especially in the field of social sciences. The essence of these lessons can be summarized in the following five points.