Hard-Boiled Arabs

Today I read an article by M. Daniel Beaumont in the scholarly journal Studia Islamica about the literary structure of early Islamic historical narrative which pointed out close parallels between our extant sources and the fiction of Ernest Hemingway and Dashiell Hammett. I have to admit this was an interesting analogy. Beaumont even went so far as to say that this style came from a similar historical environment, as the "hard-boiled" American literary style came when post-World War I disillusionment made writers decide to react against the romantic trends of the 19th century, while in the late 8th century when the Islamic historical tradition took its surviving form Muslims were disillusioned because of the Abbasid Revolution and reacted against the literary styles of the Umayyads and pre-Islamic Arabia with their heroic tales and romantic poetry. I think he's way far out on a limb there, but I have to admit my perceptions of the early caliphs have been permanently affected.