With great interest and with considerable benefit, the reader can get acquainted with the book by S. A. Voronin "Islam, nationalism and power "(Moscow, "Labyrinth", 2009).

The subject of the author's research is the correlation of Islam, nationalism and political power in the East against the background of the history and evolution of political leadership in the Islamic world since the mid-19th century. to this day.

Maxime Rodinson, a French sociologist and Islamic scholar, wrote in the preface to his book Islam and Capitalism (Moscow, 1966): "Most often, authors are reproached for not doing what they did not intend to do in their research." I foresee that S. Voronin will be reproached for abandoning the usual division of political regimes into three classical types: authoritarian, totalitarian and democratic, which has already become generally recognized in historical science and political science. But he didn't seem to be looking for the easy and well-trodden paths.

The author has developed an innovative methodology for studying the phenomenon of political leadership in the Muslim East, based on factors ignored by the generally accepted classical typology of political regimes. He pays primary attention to the study of ideological (state-nationalism and Islamism) doctrines of legitimization based on the specifics of mass consciousness and political culture in the Islamic world, carefully analyzing the degree of penetration of Islam into basic mental values.

Taking into account these factors, as well as the methods of legitimizing leadership, taken by the author as criteria for typologizing political regimes in the Muslim East, allowed him to give a classification of these regimes that is fundamentally different from the classical scheme.

As the monograph convincingly shows, the specifics of political leadership in the Islamic world are determined by the nature of mass consciousness and the level of development of political culture, and the degree of penetration of Islam into the mass consciousness and its influence on the formation of political culture is directly related to the history and specifics of Islamization of each specific political model (peripheral Islamization - in Indonesia, moderate-in Libya, fundamentalist - in Iran).

In the context of the author's vision, internationalism and Islamism as ideological discourses became the basis for legitimizing political leaders in the Muslim East in the 20th century. The origins of the formation of these doctrines can be traced by S. Voronin from the middle of the XIX century, the time of the Nahda (Renaissance) and the emergence of modernist and traditionalist trends, which, in his opinion, became the forerunners of internationalism and Islamism.

Special attention should be paid to the author's analysis, as a result of which he came to the conclusion that the ideological tool of political transformation, within the framework of the studied doctrines of legitimization, was the requirement of ijtihad, that is, free interpretation of the main sources of the Muslim faith.

S. Voronin makes a deep and thorough analysis of the Indonesian Sukarno model (nationalism + Islamism), which he characterizes as an authoritarian-patriarchal political leadership based on secular nationalism of a sacred nature in the context of peripheral Islamization; the Libyan Gaddafi model (Islam + nationalism) and the Iranian Khomeini model (Islam + Islamism).

This analysis shows that S. Voronin's original concept of political leadership in the Muslim East allows us to classify, describe and predict a very wide range of political regimes in the Islamic world using a small number of recorded factors.

It should be noted that the monograph, which has an interdisciplinary character, creatively synthesizes the ideas of several modern scientific disciplines, and as a result, an organic fusion of specific material concerning various types of political leadership in the East and general theoretical conclusions is achieved.

S. Voronin is particularly interested in the concept of the "third way". Based on extensive factual material, he convincingly proves that this concept became the dominant socio-economic doctrine in the Islamic world in the second half of the 20th century within the ideologies of internationalism and Islamism. According to the author, "in the East, the concept of the 'third way' became a challenge to the bipolar world... the 'third way' in the Muslim East in the second half of the 20th century is an attempt by postcolonial societies to find their place in the current system of international relations " (p. 10).

It seems that S. Voronin's monograph deserves a high assessment. The aim of the work is achieved - it provides a complete, historically developed view of the doctrines of legitimizing political leadership in the Islamic world in the context of the"third way". The foggy situation associated with the lack of reliable criteria for typologizing political leaders in the East has finally been brought to a head.

The author of the monograph is characterized by an extraordinary, creative approach to the phenomena under study, academic fundamentality, scrupulous study of sources, scientific courage and personal modesty. He is able to see beyond the facts, beyond the facts, and build a complete picture based on a fusion of concrete historical material and abstract conclusions.

A. M. KHAZANOV, Doctor of Historical Sciences

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