The Fear of Barbarians - 9780226805757

The relationship between Western democracies and Islam, rarely entirely comfortable, has in recent years become increasingly tense. Growing immigration and worries about cultural and political assimilationùexacerbated by the terrorist attacks of September 11 and their aftermathùhave provoked reams of commentary from all parts of the political spectrum a frustrating majority of it hyperbolic or even hysterical

In The Fear of Barbarians, the celebrated intellectual Tzvetan Todorov offers a corrective: a reasoned and often highly personal analysis of the problem, rooted in Enlightenment values yet open to the claims of cultural difference. Drawing on history, anthropology, and politics, and bringing to bear examples ranging from the murder of Theo van Gogh to the French ban on headscarves in schools, Todorov argues that the West must overcome its fear of Islam if it is to avoid betraying the values it claims to protect. True freedom, Todorov exp1ains, requires us to strike a delicate balance, between protecting and imposing cultural values, acknowledging the primacy of the law, yet strenuously protecting minority views that do not interfere with its aims. Adding force to Todorovis arguments is his own experience as a native of communist Bulgaria. His admiration of French civic identityùand Western freedomùis vigorous but non-nativist, an inclusive vision whose very flexibility is its core strength.

The record of a penetrating mind grappling with a complicated, multifaceted problem, The Fear of Barbarians is a powerful, important bookùa call, not to arms, but to thought.

Andrew Brown has translated numerous books from French, including Tavetan Todorov's The New World Disorder.