For the first time in English, a catalog of the world through fourteenth-century Arab eyes—a kind ofSchott’s Miscellany for the Islamic Golden Age An astonishing record of the knowledge of a civi
The Flood of Information brought to us by advancing technology is often accompanied by a distressing sense of "information overload," yet this experience is not unique to modern times. In fact, says
This work is a complete English translation of the Latin Etymologies of Isidore, Bishop of Seville (c.560–636). Isidore compiled the work between c.615 and the early 630s and it takes the form of an encyclopedia, arranged by subject matter. It contains much lore of the late classical world beginning with the Seven Liberal Arts, including Rhetoric, and touches on thousands of topics ranging from the names of God, the terminology of the Law, the technologies of fabrics, ships and agriculture to the names of cities and rivers, the theatrical arts, and cooking utensils. Isidore provides etymologies for most of the terms he explains, finding in the causes of words the underlying key to their meaning. This book offers a highly readable translation of the twenty books of the Etymologies, one of the most widely known texts for a thousand years from Isidore's time.
Scholars of Islamic language, literature, and culture from Europe, the US, North Africa, and Lebanon explore efforts to compile disparate information into single works within clerical, legal, religiou
Qudama b. Ja'far was a scholarly state official in the early classical period of the Abbasid dynasty (9th-10th centuries A.D.), who wrote "The Book of the Land-Tax and the Craft of Writing." Using his
