The problem is political.

Submitted by Sheldon Lazarowitz (United States), Aug 4, 2008 at 21:58

I read with some interest "The Problem of Middle Eastern Studies" by Daniel Pipes. Dr. Pipes shows how two scholars took a sentence and completely distorted it in other periodicals. The problem I believe has to do with the beliefs of the authors rather than a general problem in Middle Eastern studies.

Pipes seems to acknowledge that the two authors simply read what they wanted in the article. This is going all over on a general basis in all of the historiical political works lately. There is more subjectivity than there should be in scholarly works. This is many times on the left and hopefully not so many times on the right. If the subject was mathematics we would not have this problem.

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