January 2010

Reading Now
Research for The Mapmaker:

O'Shea, S. (2007) Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World (Profile Books) An informed history of the Med from the 7th-16th centuries, but written with a travel writer's sensibility, focusing on key places and events in the relationship between the two faiths.
 

Harvey, W. & Dawood, N. J. (2004) Arabian Nights: Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (London: Penguin) -- selection of tales told by Shahrazad over a thousand and one nights to delay her execution by the vengeful King Shahriyar.

Reading Recently or Making Notes
Research for The Mapmaker

Watt, W. M. (1994) The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe: New Edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).  traces the influence of Islam in medieval Europe, looking in detail at commerce, science and technology, philosophy, and the development of European self-awareness.
 

Chamberlain, M. (2002) Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190-1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) -- argues historians have long imposed European concepts on the study of Islamic medieval history,  and proposes the household, rather than the state agency or corporation, as the key locus of power.

Hodgson, M. G. S. (1977) The Venture of Islam Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago: Chicago University Press) -- In the second of his three-volume magisterial work, Hodgson investigates the establishment of an Islamic civilization during the middle period. Includes a theoretical discussion of cultural patterning in the Islamic world and the Occident.