Table of Contents

Foreword, by Olivier Mongin and Jean-Louis Schlegel
Part I. Preamble
1. Hitchhiking from Paris to Kabul: A Look Back at a Departure
Part II. From Louis-le-Grand to Dreux Via Afghanistan
2. Louis-le-Grand, the May 1968 Revolution, and Learning Persian
3. Louis-le-Grand, Normale sup’, and the Crisis of the Humanities
4. Oriental Scents: From Yemen to China
5. Return to the Fold
6. Postcards and American Pool
7. Professor at Dreux: Leftist, Away from Paris, and Happy
8. Out of School
Part III. The Afghan Decade
9. Once Again, and for Real, Afghanistan
10. On Foot, on Horseback, and Wearing a Burka in Wartime Afghanistan
11. Blue Helmets and Russian Bombs
12. The Failure of Political Islam
13. War Experience: Prisoners and Bandits
14. Jihad
15. The Afghan Circus
Part IV. The Central Asia Decade
16. A Soviet Invitation to Central Asia
17. A Diplomatic Passport
18. The Expert and the Politician
19. Marriage: The Orient Lost and Found
Part V. Cultures and the Universally Human: Toward Holy Ignorance
20. The Crisis of Cultures and the Universal
21. What Was Good About Orientalism
22. Against the Secularists’ Essentialism
23. The Decade 2000–2010: Where Were You on September 11, 2001?
Part VI. The Importance of a Religious Genealogy
24. Portrait of a Young Protestant in the 1950s and ’60s
25. Can One Think One’s Own Life?
Epilogue: A Story to End All Stories
Notes

About the Author

Olivier Roy is joint chair of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and Social and Political Sciences Department at the European University Institute in Florence, where he heads the Mediterranean program. His books include Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (Columbia, 2004), Secularism Confronts Islam (Columbia, 2007), and Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways (2010).

Reviews

Olivier Roy is one of the most important analysts of political Islam working today, arguably the single most insightful voice in a vast field. In Search of the Lost Orient provides a complete intellectual life story and argues that empirical research and a focus on concrete social practices must be the basis by which Islam and its intersection with politics must be understood. An engagingly written, impressive book that provides a rare and unique view of political Islam and one of its major thinkers. -- Benjamin Brower, University of Texas at Austin