A History of the Muslim World
From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 7, 2024
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- $27.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era
This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity.
After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific.
At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Princeton University historian Cook (Ancient Religions, Modern Politics) provides an ambitious if uneven overview of Muslim civilization since the 600s. Depicting the pre-Islam Arabian interior as a stateless wilderness populated by feuding tribes dwelling in the shadow of powerful Persian and Byzantine empires, Cook argues that such conditions made the rise of a Muslim state an unlikely success story. He briskly outlines Islam's early years—including the conquering of Mecca in 630 and a civil war over succession beginning in 656—before diving into a narrative-driven account of the Islamic empire's outward expansion and its eventual collapse in the face of weak rulers, hostile states, and financial troubles. Moving on to the post–empire Islamic world (the 11th through 18th centuries), Cook tours the globe, bringing cultures and customs to life in evocative detail (such as how a Muslim-majority Tamil community built a network of women-only alleyways). He competently tackles topics with modern implications, like race and the trans-Saharan slave trade, though his academic tone leads to a chronic case of understatement (e.g., "the controversial idea of the curse of Ham"). The last section pivots to a less illustrative, more discursive analysis of the 1800s through today that makes for a rocky ending to an otherwise steady narrative. The result is an accessible history of the Muslim world that falters in its finale.