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Fascinating. I knew some of this, but only a scant, superficial bit. On order.

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A wonderful piece. Thanks for writing it and thanks to the UnPopulist for hosting it and giving it a bit more of an audience.

I've read Menocal and Lowney on the convivencia so those parts were familiar to me. But there was a lot of new (for me) and relevant material to ponder here.

Also, I hope Mr. Belvedere happens by - I gather that he follows developments in Indonesia, which has (sometimes, at least) been an example to the world of what a more moderate, liberal Islam might look like (and, since I've drifted over to Indonesia, I can't leave without saying: Hail VoB!)

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Right on, Robert.

We included it for that very reason in this piece: https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/contrary-to-western-understanding

Thanks for reading!

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Based on this review, I want to read the book. And the review did what good reviews are supposed to do: you elucidated the hard parts. I especially appreciated the way you parsed 2 big problems: liberal religion's struggle with assimilation, and the fetishization of Jewish diaspora as a solution to Jewish power. It's not for a review to solve these problems, all you can do is raise them. Thanks.

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