2015, ISBN: 9780863561139

Gebundene Ausgabe

2005. Hardcover. New. In the beginning of the 21st century, significant changes are taking place in the international situation and relationship among the various countries of the world… Mehr…

2005. Hardcover. New. In the beginning of the 21st century, significant changes are taking place in the international situation and relationship among the various countries of the world. The world as it is today is unipolar with the United States as the dominant economic and military power. This indeed is the most outstanding development of the period following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But this is half-truth. Now the world is witnessing new changes and this will have a far-reaching impact in the coming decades. Quite apart from the fact that multilaterally, bilateralism and regional formations have begun to taken shape, the most outstanding feature of the international situation is that new political and economic powers have surfaced on our planet. The most important development of this period is that China, Russia, India and Brazil have emerged as major economic owners and the years to come these four countries will become key factors in the world. It is in this context that an attempt has been make in this book to make a study of the global significance of Indo-Russian strategic partnership. Indo-Russian strategic partnership with its multidimensional character; political, military and economic, therefore will be a key factor in shaping the international relations. This is the main direction of this study. About The Author:- V.D. Chopra began his career, as head of Economics Department in D.A.V. College in Rawalpindi (Pakistan). He was a political activist and a freedom fighter. In 1939, he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for pulling down the Union Jack. In 1941, he was detained in the notorious Lahore Fort along with CPI (M) General Secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjit. He was again arrested under defence of India Rules in 1942-1943 for the alleged subversive activities in the armed services in collusion with the famous Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who at that time was serving in the army as a senior officer. He has presented academic papers in various international seminars such as in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and erstwhile Soviet Union. He worked for Link weekly and Patriot daily of three decades in various capacities and rose to become the Chief Editor. He was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Peace Prize for his book India and the Socialist world in 1984. At present, he is vice-president of the International Institute for Aria Pacific Studies, New Delhi. He has authored and edited over three dozen books and written a large number of articles. The books relevant to the present volume include studies in Indo-Soviet Relations (1986), Indo-Soviet Relations- Prospects and problems (1991), India’s Relations with Russia and China-A New Phase (1997), Indo-Russian Relations – prospects, Problems and Russia Today (2001), New Trends in Indo-Russian Relations (2003) Contents:- Preface • List of Contributors • India-Russia Strategic relationship in Changing World: Overview • Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership: Bilateral and Global Challenges • Global Development in the Twenty-first Century and Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership • New Parameters of Strategic Partnership • Significance of Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership • Importance of Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership • Continuing Strategic Partnership between Russia and India • Looking Beyond Indo-Russian Military-Strategic Partnership • Russian-South Asian Relations • U.S.-Russian Relations: A New Phase • Significance of Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership: Its Impact on Arab World • Russia Foreign Policy: The Emerging Contours • Russia Emerging as a World Economic Power and Indo-Russian Economic Cooperation • Economic Cooperation between India and Russia • The Economic Potential and Problems of India’s Trade with Russia • Impact of Developments in Russia on Indian National Movement • Russian Stand on Indo-Pak Conflict on Kashmir: A Historical Analysis • Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership Enters a New Phase • India-Russian Reiterate their Strategic Partnership • Appendix • Index. The Title 'Global Significance of Indo-Russian Strategies written/authored/edited by V.D. Chopra', published in the year 2005. The ISBN 9788178354002 is assigned to the Hardcover version of this title. This book has total of pp. 308 (Pages). The publisher of this title is Kalpaz Publications. This Book is in English. The subject of this book is International Studies., 2005, Fordham University Press, New York: 2015. Softcover. Brand new book. Abdelwahab Meddeb makes an urgent case for an Islamic reformation, located squarely in Western Europe, now home to millions of Muslims, where Christianity and Judaism have come to coexist with secular humanism and positivist law. He is not advocating "moderate" Islam, which he characterizes as thinly disguised Wahabism, but rather an Islam inspired by the great Sufi thinkers, whose practice of religion was not bound by doctrine. To accomplish this, Meddeb returns to the doctrinal question of the text as transcription of the uncreated word of God and calls upon Muslims to distinguish between Islam's spiritual message and the temporal, material, and historically grounded origins of its founding scriptures. He contrasts periods of Islamic historyÑwhen philosophers and theologians engaged in lively dialogue with other faiths and civilizations and contributed to transmitting the Hellenistic tradition to early modern EuropeÑwith modern Islam's collective amnesia of this past. Meddeb wages a war of interpretations in this book, in his attempt to demonstrate that Muslims cannot join the concert of nations unless they set aside outmoded notions such as jihad and realize that feuding among the monotheisms must give way to the more important issue of what it means to be a citizen in today's postreligious global setting. Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946-2014) was novelist and poet who taught comparative literature at the Universit Paris X (Nanterre). Meddeb published more than twenty books in French. His La maladie de l'islam, winner of the Prix Franois Mauriac, has been translated into English as The Malady of Islam. Jane Kuntz has a doctorate in French from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and has translated eight works of contemporary French fiction for Dalkey Archive Press. "Meddeb's thesisÑthat Muslims need to turn towards Sufism more-is not new; many of his foundational arguments, however, are bold and fresh . . . Those well-versed in Islamic Studies will enjoy the erudite read, masterfully rendered into English by Kuntz, a seasoned translator."ÑPublishers Weekly "The philosophy of the future will draw upon all of humanity's collective accomplishments. In Islam and the Challenge of Civilization, Abdelwahab Meddeb proposes a scriptural hermeneutics that combines Spinoza and Ibn 'Arabi, an architectural style that blends Brunilleschi and Sinan, an ethos of competition expressed by the Qur'an and Claude Levi-Strauss, and many other hybrids. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to glimpse the cosmopolitan civilization on the horizon."ÑNicholas Tampio, Fordham University "This is the perfect handbook for deepening our understanding of both the incredible richness through time and the paradoxical present obtuseness of Islamic culture. Meddeb achieves this featÑhow clear knowledge can disarm belligerent interpretations of a paradoxical faithÑthrough his elegant and polyphonic use of Qu'ranic exegesis, advanced literary poetics, and a strong sense of democratic citizen politics, all of which are informed by a profound cosmopolitanism able to simultaneously draw on Ibn Arabi's eclectic Sufism and Voltaire's secular intellect, among many other sources. A necessary exploration,a must-read."ÑPierre Joris, author of The University of California Book of North African Literature "It is more urgent than ever to allow a voice such as Meddeb's to be heard, the voice of an Arab intellectual familiar with both Muslim civilization and Western culture. In thisÑand thanks to his immense knowledge and open-indednessÑhe is a precious translator capable of seeing both sides at the same time."ÑMarcel Henaff, University of California, San Diego ". . . an important contribution to knowledge because it gives eloquent voice to a modern Muslim thinker who rejects the narrow legalism of the Wahhabi tradition of Saudi Arabia or the Puritanism of the Egyptian Muslim Brethren."ÑPatrick J. Ryan S.J., Fordham University "Abdelwahab Meddeb's Islam and the Challenge of Civilization offers new perspectives on and fresh associations among historical events in a way that draws the curtain and adjusts the view among Muslim public intellectuals. Situated within the broad scholarship of Islamic thought, it engages critically and creatively with various doctrinal issues that are being manipulated by some Muslim opinion leaders to support their own bellicose positions."ÑAmerican Journal of Islamic Social Sciences "Bold and fresh. . . . Those well-versed in Islamic Studies will enjoy the erudite read, masterfully rendered into English by Kuntz."ÑPublishers Weekly, Fordham University Press, New York: 2015, [Israel?]: Hotsa'at "Hadaran", 1959. Text in Hebrew. 154, 195, 156, 150, 140 p. The Hebrew translation is that of Yehudah ibn Tibon; the commentaries are by Judah ben Joseph Moscato and Israel ben Moses Halevi Zamosc respectively. Includes index. The Kuzari, full title The Book of Refutation and Proof in Support of the Abased Religion , also known as the Book of the Kuzari, is one of the most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Judah Halevi, completed around 1140. It is regarded as one the most important apologetic works of Jewish philosophy. Divided into five parts ("ma'amarim" - articles), it takes the form of a dialogue between a rabbi and a pagan. The pagan is then mythologized as the king of the Khazars who has invited the rabbi to instruct him in the tenets of Judaism. Originally written in Arabic, the book was translated by numerous scholars, including Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon, into Hebrew and other languages.[Wikipedia]. Later Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 22 cm tall., Hotsa'at "Hadaran", 1959, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1998. Hardcover. New. Islam and the Western World is compilation of thought-provoking and analytical articles, derived from the authoritative writings of learned scholars in the field. The contents of the book are: Muslim Contribution to the European Renaissance; An Anonymous Andalusian Elegy on the War of Granada; Relations between Latin America and the Islamic World; Gulf Relations with the West: An Historical Survey; Britain in Malaya; Prophet of Doom; Ameer Ali in London: A New Scenario; The Bilallians of the United States; The Vatican and the Palestinian Question; The Ummah and the Predicament of Muslim Minorities; Muslim Religious Conservatism and Dissent in the USSR; Moriscos; The Muslim Intellectual Emigre in the United States; Iqbal-Poet between India and Europe; The Western Image of Islam: Political Implications; Arab Cultural Consolidation: A Response to European Colonialism; British Imperial Interests and the Maintenance of the Ottoman Empire; and Cordova as an Intellectual Centre. Printed Pages: 288., Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1998, Published in a limited academic edition of 300 copies. No ISBN. --- CONTENTS: Ashok Vajpeyi, Looking Askance at Being: A Note on Ghalib from a Hindi Poet; Mehr Afshan Farooqi, Power, Culture and Language of Poetry: The Transition from Vali to Ghalib; Tariq Rahman, The Language of Love: A Study of the Amorous and Erotic Associations of Urdu; Danuta Stasik, Perso-Arabic Lexis in the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas; Gail Minault, Zay Khay Sheen, Aligarh's Purdah-Nashin Poet; Christina Oesterheld, Jihadi Literature? Some novels of Nasim Hijazi; Renata Czekalska, Images of India's Muslim Past in Modern Hindi Poetry: Five Poems on Three Cities by Kunwar Narain; Daniela Bredi, Nostalgia in the Re-Construction of Muslim Identity in the Aftermath of 1857 and the Myth of Delhi; Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, History Preserved in Names: Delhi Urban Toponyms of Perso-Arabic Origin; Kinga Maciuszak, Persian Lexicography in India; Tariq Rahman, The Learning of Persian in South Asia: The Curricula and Educational Institutions for Teaching Persian in South Asia; David Lelyveld, Sir Sayyid's Public Sphere: Urdu Print and Oratory in Nineteenth-Century India; André Wink, On the Road of Failure: The Afghans in Mughal India; Kamila Junik, Between Tradition and Modernity: Fatima Jinnah / FREE standard shipping worldwide, all orders upgraded to priority airmail (average delivery time for US, Europe, Japan is 6 working days, other countries vary - please feel free to email us for details). --- Hardcover, 349pp + 1 colour plate on glossy paper, all papers in English, NOT ex-library. Unused copy in very good condition, boards show gentle storage wear and shelfwear. --- Pages very bright, clean, untanned; text unmarked, no writing, no highlighting of any kind. Very good tight binding. Boards show gentle scratches, smudges, fingermarks, faint shelfworn marks; corners slightly bumped (small indentations/creases). Published without a dust jacket., London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. ISBN:0863561136. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For the Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not a time of awakening from medieval slumber, but years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army - inspired by prophets and poets - succeeded in destroying Crusader kingdoms, it was the greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The memory of it still lives in the minds of Arabs today. Amin Maalouf has combed the works of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. In this intriguing and entertaining book, he retells their story, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history and offers fascinating insights into the forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today. Maalouf concludes with an epilogue raising a provocative question: Why was it that soon after this great victory, the Arab world sank into decline, while the epicenter of world history shifted to Western Europe? His answer suggests that the West had the advantage of a principle of social cohesion lacking in the Arab world, and that relations between the two civilizations are stamped, even now, by the effects of a titanic struggle that ended seven centuries ago. inventory #23716 ISBN: 0863561136.<

2001, ISBN: 9780863561139

Gebundene Ausgabe

London, UK BBC Worldwide, 2001. Audio Cassette Two Audio Cassette Tapes in Excellent [Near Fine] condition (they have been played, so they are no longer "new", but still play … Mehr…

London, UK BBC Worldwide, 2001. Audio Cassette Two Audio Cassette Tapes in Excellent [Near Fine] condition (they have been played, so they are no longer "new", but still play fine), showing only the mildest rubbing to the plastic. These are housed in a plastic case that has seen better days. At this point serves only to protect the paper and cassettes [Fair at best]. All colorful liner notes are present and in Excellent condition [Fine]. Overall, Very Good. BBC Radio Collection. This recording was previously issued in 1991. Audio Book: Cassette Tapes. Four BBC Full-Cast Dramatizations (The Blue Cross, The Queer Feet, The Eye of Apollo, and The Absence of Mr. Glass. The first three were produced in 1984; Mr. Glass was produced in 1987. Andrew Sachs stars as Father Brown and Olivier Pierre as Flambeau. Dramatised by John Scotney and Directed by Alec Reid. Running Time: 105 Minutes. Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (1874 – 1936) better known as G.K. Chesterton, was an English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox." Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out." Chesterton is well known for his fictional priest-detective Father Brown. Chesterton early showed a great interest in and talent for art. He had planned to become an artist and his writing shows a vision that clothed abstract ideas in concrete and memorable images. Even his fiction contained carefully concealed parables. Father Brown is perpetually correcting the incorrect vision of the bewildered folks at the scene of the crime and wandering off at the end with the criminal to exercise his priestly role of recognition and repentance. For example, in the story "The Flying Stars", Father Brown entreats the character Flambeau to give up his life of crime: "There is still youth and honour and humour in you; don't fancy they will last in that trade. Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. The kind man drinks and turns cruel; the frank man kills and lies about it. Many a man I've known started like you to be an honest outlaw, a merry robber of the rich, and ended stamped into slime.", BBC Worldwide, 2001., Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1984 609 pages with frontispiece, plates, maps and index. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6 1/2") issued in brown with black lettering to cover and spine. translated by Juan Jose Utrilla. inscribed by Dr Keen. First published by Rutgers University Press. 1st Mexican edition. The great inquiry into the nature of Aztec Civilization began at the very moment of its destruction in the name of Spanish Crown and Church. From the conquistadors and the early missionaries and colonizers Europe received the first, classic descriptions of the Valley of Mexico. "I Know very well," Cortes informed the Emperor Charles V, "that what I shall say, although imperfectly told, will appear so wonderful that it will hardly seem credible, for even we, who see with our own eyes the things I describe, are unable to comprehend their reality." So, in the year 1519, Cortes reported his impressions of the magnificent ceremonial city of Mexico-Tenochitlan to his royal master. In this work Dr Keen explores the shifting attitudes and focus of the scores of historians, philosophers, scientists, and men of letters and the arts who dealt with the Aztec theme in the four and half centuries after the conquest of Mexico. From that time to the present, the world of the ancient Aztecs has been a subject of compelling interest and controversy in the West. the reports from New Spain supplied ammunition for critics of the philosophic premises of which the European Old Order rested. From the very first, observers and statesmen and churchmen at home had drawn divergent conclusions about the character of the Aztecs and the quality of their institutions and monuments. As the Indian culture vanished in the collision of the two worlds, the vision of the Aztec past blurred. Spanish commentators, in particular, were swayed at once by individual political, moral and intellectual premises. Keen explains how each new synthesis, however extravagant, continuously correct and developed the Western conception of Aztec civilization. He relates prevailing ideas about the Aztecs to the broad socioeconomic, political and ideological patters of the age, as well as to the contemporary state of knowledge about ancient Mexico. Condition: Inscribed on front end paper. Jacket with light edge wear. A better than very good copy in like jacket. . Inscribed. First Mexican Edition. Original Cloth. Better than Very Good/Better than very Good. Royal octavo., Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1984, London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. ISBN: 0863561136. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For the Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not a time of awakening from medieval slumber, but years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army - inspired by prophets and poets - succeeded in destroying Crusader kingdoms, it was the greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The memory of it still lives in the minds of Arabs today. Amin Maalouf has combed the works of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. In this intriguing and entertaining book, he retells their story, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history and offers fascinating insights into the forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today. Maalouf concludes with an epilogue raising a provocative question: Why was it that soon after this great victory, the Arab world sank into decline, while the epicenter of world history shifted to Western Europe? His answer suggests that the West had the advantage of a principle of social cohesion lacking in the Arab world, and that relations between the two civilizations are stamped, even now, by the effects of a titanic struggle that ended seven centuries ago. inventory #23716 ISBN: 0863561136.<

2006, ISBN: 9780863561139

Cornell University Press, August 2006. Hardcover. New. The whole book is, simply, a scholarly contemplation of the phrase 'eating beauty' as it reveals the life and art of Europ… Mehr…

Cornell University Press, August 2006. Hardcover. New. The whole book is, simply, a scholarly contemplation of the phrase 'eating beauty' as it reveals the life and art of European history up to the modern age. Astell (echoing Simone Weil) proposes two kinds of eating beauty: 'one way of eating destroys the beauty of the world and the beloved; the other preserves and enhances it'-the antithesis between the Forbidden Fruit and Eucharist. In lust and greed, we see beauty and then consume it to our, and its, destruction. But Christ, who is Beauty Incarnate, gives Himself that we might consume Him and then be able to look to Him with 'unveiled face.' Bernard, Bonaventure, Ignatius-among many saints and mystics of the Middle Ages-understood this, and their ideal of piety was formed by attention to the Eucharistic meal as the heart of all spiritual activity. Astell is deeply read in ancient and medieval sources, as well as more contemporary thinkers such as Weil, Girard, and von Balthasar, yet her synthesis is an exciting and refreshingly original interdisciplinary work. 'What wonders could occur,' muses the author in her poetic introduction, 'if beauty could be eaten, beauty imbibed, beauty absorbed, without ever ceasing to be beauty! How beautiful we would be and become!' 296 pp. Hardcover, Cornell University Press, London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. ISBN:0863561136. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For the Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not a time of awakening from medieval slumber, but years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army - inspired by prophets and poets - succeeded in destroying Crusader kingdoms, it was the greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The memory of it still lives in the minds of Arabs today. Amin Maalouf has combed the works of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. In this intriguing and entertaining book, he retells their story, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history and offers fascinating insights into the forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today. Maalouf concludes with an epilogue raising a provocative question: Why was it that soon after this great victory, the Arab world sank into decline, while the epicenter of world history shifted to Western Europe? His answer suggests that the West had the advantage of a principle of social cohesion lacking in the Arab world, and that relations between the two civilizations are stamped, even now, by the effects of a titanic struggle that ended seven centuries ago. inventory #23716 ISBN: 0863561136.<

1984, ISBN: 0863561136

Gebundene Ausgabe

[EAN: 9780863561139], [PU: Al Saqi Books], ARABIC HISTORY CRUSADES, History|Middle East, Social Science|Women's Studies, London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dus… Mehr…

[EAN: 9780863561139], [PU: Al Saqi Books], ARABIC HISTORY CRUSADES, History|Middle East, Social Science|Women's Studies, London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. 0863561136. keywords: Arabic History Crusades. inventory # 23732. FROM THE PUBLISHER - European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For the Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not a time of awakening from medieval slumber, but years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army - inspired by prophets and poets - succeeded in destroying Crusader kingdoms, it was the greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The memory of it still lives in the minds of Arabs today. Amin Maalouf has combed the works of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. In this intriguing and entertaining book, he retells their story, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history and offers fascinating insights into the forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today. Maalouf concludes with an epilogue raising a provocative question: Why was it that soon after this great victory, the Arab world sank into decline, while the epicenter of world history shifted to Western Europe? His answer suggests that the West had the advantage of a principle of social cohesion lacking in the Arab world, and that relations between the two civilizations are stamped, even now, by the effects of a titanic struggle that ended seven centuries ago.<

1984, ISBN: 9780863561139

London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. ISBN:0863561136. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - Europe… Mehr…

London. 1984. Al Saqi Books. 1st British Edition. Very Good In Dustjacket. ISBN:0863561136. Translated from the Arabic by Jon Rothschild. 293 pages. hardcover. FROM THE PUBLISHER - European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For the Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not a time of awakening from medieval slumber, but years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. When, under Saladin, a powerful Muslim army - inspired by prophets and poets - succeeded in destroying Crusader kingdoms, it was the greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West. The memory of it still lives in the minds of Arabs today. Amin Maalouf has combed the works of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants in the events. In this intriguing and entertaining book, he retells their story, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history and offers fascinating insights into the forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today. Maalouf concludes with an epilogue raising a provocative question: Why was it that soon after this great victory, the Arab world sank into decline, while the epicenter of world history shifted to Western Europe? His answer suggests that the West had the advantage of a principle of social cohesion lacking in the Arab world, and that relations between the two civilizations are stamped, even now, by the effects of a titanic struggle that ended seven centuries ago. inventory #23716 ISBN: 0863561136.<