Product Description: The early Abbasid Caliphate was an important period for Islam. The dynasty, based in Baghdad, ruled over a vast Empire, stretching from the Indus Valley and Southern Russia to the East to Tunisia in the West; and presided over an age of brilliant cultural achievements...read more

Product Description: The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate is one of the most original and interesting chronicles to have survived from the mediaeval Islamic world. Written by the noted Persian historian and philosopher, Miskawayh, it is a lively, vigorous and remarkably secular account of events during a time that many consider to be the golden age of Islamic scholarship...read more

Product Description: The Middle East has a poetic record stretching back five millennia. In this unique book, leading scholars draw upon this legacy to explore the ways in which poets, from the third millennium BC to the present day, have responded to the effects of war...read more

Product Description: A History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria is a unique series of biographies of the Coptic patriarchs from the earliest, St Mark, to the tenth century. Many of the accounts are in fact older Greek and Coptic works translated into Arabic and edited by Sawirus, who sought out the originals from the monasteries of the day...read more

Product Description: This volume of conference papers provides a discussion of the works of al-Tabari (d. 932 CE) the greatest historian of the early Islamic world. An international team of well-known scholars examine the life of the man, his work, the sources he used and his intellectual legacy...read more

Examines the history of the great Islamic expansion, reveals how the Arab armies were able to overcome almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic settlement in new lands and the conversion to Islam of vast populations.

Presents a history of the Abbasid dynasty, the founders of Baghdad, and discusses the politics, military conquests, court life, palace bureacracy, culture, and arts which characterized the era.

The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates is an accessible history of the Near East from c.600-1050AD, the period in which Islamic society was formed. Beginning with the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islam, Hugh Kennedy goes on to explore the great Arab conquests of the seventh century and the golden age of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates when the world of Islam was politically and culturally far more developed than the West. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the period of political fragmentation which followed shattered this early unity, never to be recovered. This new edition is fully updated to take into account the considerable amount of new research on early Islam, and contains a completely revised bibliography. Based on extensive reading of the original Arabic sources, Kennedy breaks away from the Orientalist tradition of seeing early Islamic history as a series of ephemeral rulers and pointless battles by drawing attention to underlying long term social and economic processes. The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates deals with issues of continuing and increasing relevance in the twenty-first century, when it is, perhaps, more important than ever to understand the early development of the Islamic world. Students and scholars of early Islamic history will find this book a clear, informative and readable introduction to the subject.

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A satirical, zany novel about the cutthroat world of art dealers follows the coming-of-age of a young, sincere Princeton graduate who becomes the protege of a Machiavellian dealer. By the author of Everything Looks Impressive.

Embarassed by his modest background, Yale freshman Alex MacDonald nevertheless falls in love with Jill Lanigan, a senior whose controversial sexual political attitudes lead to a violent confrontation.

Embarassed by his modest background, Yale freshman Alex MacDonald nevertheless falls in love with Jill Lanigan, a senior whose controversial sexual political attitudes lead to a violent confrontation. Simultaneous.