Michael Curtis is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political science at Rutgers University. He is the author of approximately 30 books, most notably Verdict on Vichy (2004), Three Against the Third Republic (1959),Totalitarianism (1979), and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (1973). For many years, he was the president of American Professors for Peace in the Middle East and editor of the Middle East Review.

'Michael Curtis has written a discerning, authoritative book of intellectual history. He takes us back to the greats - Burke and Mill and Marx and Tocqueville and Weber - and throws a floodlight on the present. He has read widely and thoughtfully. From his pages, and from the company of those intellectual giants, we return with a new understanding of the civilizational conflicts that mark our contemporary world. This is a book of deep scholarship and learning, but it is written with ease and grace. A book of political theory, and of history as well. An essential book, for it retrieves for us a big piece of Western intellectual history and thought.' Fouad Ajami, Johns Hopkins University

• 1. European views of Islam and their correlation with Oriental despotism; 2. Observant travelers; 3. Political thinkers and the orient; 4. The Oriental despotic university of Montesquieu; 5. Edmund Burke and despotism in India; 6. Alexis de Tocqueville and colonization; 7. James Mill and John Stuart Mill: despotism in India; 8. Karl Marx: the Asiatic mode of production and Oriental despotism; 9. Max Weber: patrimonialism as a political type; 10. Conclusion.

Michael Curtis is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political science at Rutgers University. He is the author of approximately 30 books, most notably Verdict on Vichy (2004), Three Against the Third Republic (1959),Totalitarianism (1979), and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World (1973). For many years, he was the president of American Professors for Peace in the Middle East and editor of the Middle East Review.

'Michael Curtis has written a discerning, authoritative book of intellectual history. He takes us back to the greats - Burke and Mill and Marx and Tocqueville and Weber - and throws a floodlight on the present. He has read widely and thoughtfully. From his pages, and from the company of those intellectual giants, we return with a new understanding of the civilizational conflicts that mark our contemporary world. This is a book of deep scholarship and learning, but it is written with ease and grace. A book of political theory, and of history as well. An essential book, for it retrieves for us a big piece of Western intellectual history and thought.' Fouad Ajami, Johns Hopkins University

• 1. European views of Islam and their correlation with Oriental despotism; 2. Observant travelers; 3. Political thinkers and the orient; 4. The Oriental despotic university of Montesquieu; 5. Edmund Burke and despotism in India; 6. Alexis de Tocqueville and colonization; 7. James Mill and John Stuart Mill: despotism in India; 8. Karl Marx: the Asiatic mode of production and Oriental despotism; 9. Max Weber: patrimonialism as a political type; 10. Conclusion.