Problem: Bernard Lewis, FBA (born 31 May 1916) is a British American historian specializing in oriental studies. He is also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis' expertise is in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.

Lewis' influence extends beyond academia to the general public. He is a pioneer of the social and economic history of the Middle East and is famous for his extensive research of the Ottoman archives. He began his research career with the study of medieval Arab, especially Syrian, history. His first article, dedicated to professional guilds of medieval Islam, had been widely regarded as the most authoritative work on the subject for about thirty years. However, after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, scholars of Jewish origin found it more and more difficult to conduct archival and field research in the Arab countries, where they were suspected of espionage. Therefore, Lewis switched to the study of the Ottoman Empire, while continuing to research Arab history through the Ottoman archives which had only recently been opened to Western researchers. A series of articles that Lewis published over the next several years revolutionized the history of the Middle East by giving a broad picture of Islamic society, including its government, economy, and demographics.  Lewis argues that the Middle East is currently backward and its decline was a largely self-inflicted condition resulting from both culture and religion, as opposed to the post-colonialist view which posits the problems of the region as economic and political maldevelopment mainly due to the 19th-century European colonization. In his 1982 work Muslim Discovery of Europe, Lewis argues that Muslim societies could not keep pace with the West and that "Crusader successes were due in no small part to Muslim weakness." Further, he suggested that as early as the 11th century Islamic societies were decaying, primarily the byproduct of internal problems like "cultural arrogance," which was a barrier to creative borrowing, rather than external pressures like the Crusades.  In the wake of Soviet and Arab attempts to delegitimize Israel as a racist country, Lewis wrote a study of anti-Semitism, Semites and Anti-Semites (1986). In other works he argued Arab rage against Israel was disproportionate to other tragedies or injustices in the Muslim world, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and control of Muslim-majority land in Central Asia, the bloody and destructive fighting during the Hama uprising in Syria (1982), the Algerian civil war (1992-98), and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88).  In addition to his scholarly works, Lewis wrote several influential books accessible to the general public: The Arabs in History (1950), The Middle East and the West (1964), and The Middle East (1995). In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the interest in Lewis's work surged, especially his 1990 essay The Roots of Muslim Rage. Three of his books were published after 9/11: What Went Wrong? (written before the attacks), which explored the reasons of the Muslim world's apprehension of (and sometimes outright hostility to) modernization; The Crisis of Islam; and Islam: The Religion and the People.

which part of the middle east did he study

Answer with quotes: extensive research of the Ottoman archives.


Problem: Cullen was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire. His father William was a lawyer retained by the Duke of Hamilton as factor, and his mother was Elizabeth Roberton of Whistlebury. He studied at the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (renamed in 1848 The Hamilton Academy), then, in 1726, began a General Studies arts course at the University of Glasgow. He began his medical training as apprentice to John Paisley, a Glasgow apothecary surgeon, then spent 1729 as surgeon on a merchant vessel trading between London and the West Indies.

In 1755 he was enticed by Lord Kames to become Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. It was in Edinburgh, in 1756, that he gave the first documented public demonstration of artificial refrigeration. Cullen used a pump to create a partial vacuum over a container of diethyl ether, which then boiled, absorbing heat from the surroundings. This created a small amount of ice, but the process found no commercial application.  From 1757 he delivered lectures on clinical medicine in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. On the death of Charles Alston in 1760, Cullen at the request of the students undertook to finish his course of lectures on materia medica; he delivered an entirely new course, notes of which were published in an unauthorised edition in 1771, but which he re-wrote and issued as A Treatise on Materia Medica in 1789.  On the death of Robert Whytt, the professor of the institutes of medicine, Cullen accepted the chair, at the same time resigning that of chemistry. In the same year he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the professorship of the practice of physic (medicine), but subsequently an arrangement was made between him and John Gregory, the successful candidate, by which they both agreed to deliver alternate courses on the theory and practice of medicine. This arrangement continued until the sudden death of Gregory in 1773. Cullen was then appointed sole professor of the practice of physic, and he continued in this office until a few months before his death.  In 1783 Cullen (together with his sons) was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  He died on 5 February 1790 in Kirknewton, West Lothian, and is buried in the churchyard there. His son Robert lies with him.

Why did he go there?

Answer with quotes: he was enticed by Lord Kames to become Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at the University of Edinburgh.


Problem: Jose Julian Marti Perez (January 28, 1853 - May 19, 1895) was a Cuban National Hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. During his life, he worked as a poet, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher. He was very politically active, and is considered an important revolutionary philosopher and political theorist. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol of Cuba's bid for independence against Spain in the 19th century, and is referred to as the "Apostle of Cuban Independence."

Jose Marti is usually honored as a great poet, patriot and martyr of Cuban Independence, but he was also a translator of some note. Although he translated literary material for the sheer joy of it, much of the translating he did was imposed on him by economic necessity during his many years of exile in the United States. Marti learned English at an early age, and had begun to translate at thirteen. He continued translating for the rest of his life, including his time as a student in Spain, although the period of his greatest productivity was during his stay in New York from 1880 until he returned to Cuba in 1895.  In New York he was what we would call today a "freelancer" as well as an "in house" translator. He translated several books for the publishing house of D. Appleton, and did a series of translations for newspapers. As a revolutionary activist in Cuba's long struggle for independence he translated into English a number of articles and pamphlets supporting that movement. In addition to fluent English, Marti also spoke French, Italian, Latin and Classical Greek fluently, the latter learned so he could read the Greek classical works in the original.  There was clearly a dichotomy in Marti's feeling about the kind of work he was translating. Like many professionals, he undertook for money translation tasks which had little intellectual or emotional appeal for him. Although Marti never presented a systematic theory of translation nor did he write extensively about his approach to translation, he did jot down occasional thoughts on the subject, showcasing his awareness of the translator's dilemma of the faithful versus the beautiful and stating that "translation should be natural, so that it appears that the book were written in the language to which it has been translated".

Were all of the translations politically motivated?

Answer with quotes:
he translated literary material for the sheer joy of it,