A Convergence of Civilizations: The Transformation of Muslim Societies Around the World

It's an old trope that Muslim and Western societies are undergoing a "clash of civilizations"%E2%80%94one that this slim study neatly and persuasively rebuts. Courbage and Todd (After the Empire), director and researcher respectively at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies, posit that globally, rising literacy rates and dropping birth rates are followed by societal upheaval presaging modernization. The authors present copious data to argue that Muslim societies are on this track that the West has already completed (though "Westerners would like to forget that their demographic transitions were also strewn with many disturbances"). In this time of upheavals across the Muslim world, the authors' predictions appear nearly prophetic%E2%80%94save for their contention that Arab regimes are "likely to be stable for a relatively long time." This is the academic work that remains accessible even to the nonprofessional reader, the book's length allowing brisk reading, but the authors occasionally provide conclusions without quite enough underpinning. At certain points, deeper analysis would have strengthened their case. (June)