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  $26.00
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This title in other formats:The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilizationby Jonathan Lyons
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy — and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle. In the royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House of Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand. Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. In this brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much "Western" culture owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning. Review:"Pertinent study that should aid in a better understanding between East and West." Kirkus Reviews Review:"With a storyteller's eye for the revealing detail and an artist's feel for the sweep of history, Jonathan Lyons has uncovered the debt that the Christian world — and Western civilization — owes to Muslim philosophy and science. The House of Wisdom is a fascinating and picturesque page-turner." Ian Bremmer, author of The J Curve About the AuthorJonathan Lyons served as an editor and foreign correspondent — mostly in the Muslim world — for Reuters for more than twenty years. He is now a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research Center and a Ph.D. candidate in the sociology of religion, both at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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