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Reading Orientalism

Said and the Unsaid

By Daniel Martin Varisco. With a new preface by the author

The late Edward Said remains one of the most influential critics and public intellectuals of our time, with lasting contributions to many disciplines. Much of his reputation derives from the phenomenal multidisciplinary influence of his...

Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century Damascus

By James P. Grehan

Damascus was for centuries a center of learning and commerce. Drawing on the city's dazzling literary tradition-a rich collection of poetry, chronicles, travel accounts, and biographical dictionaries-as well as on Islamic court records, James Grehan...

Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran

By Arash Khazeni

Tribes and Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran traces the history of the Bakhtiyari tribal confederacy of the Zagros Mountains through momentous times that saw the opening of their territory to the outside world....

The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival

By Yasser Tabbaa

The transformation of Islamic architecture and ornament during the eleventh and twelfth centuries signaled profound cultural changes in the Islamic world. Yasser Tabbaa explores with exemplary lucidity the geometric techniques that facilitated this transformation, and...

Coffee and Coffeehouses

The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East

By Ralph S. Hattox

Drawing on the accounts of early European travelers, original Arabic sources on jurisprudence and etiquette, and treatises on coffee from the period, the author recounts the colorful early history of the spread of coffee and...

The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam

By Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi. Translated by Jerome W. Clinton

The tyrannical monster Zahhak upon whose shoulder grew serpents that feasted daily on the brains of Iran’s youth; the giant hero Rostam who vanquished entire armies with his immense strength and military prowess; the inept...

Ottoman Lyric Poetry

An Anthology

By Walter G. Andrews, Najaat Black, Mehmet Kalpakli

The Ottoman Empire was one of the most significant forces in world history and yet little attention is paid to its rich cultural life. For the people of the Ottoman Empire, lyrical poetry was the...

Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East

By Jonathan P. Berkey

Islamic popular preachers and storytellers had enormous influence in defining common religious knowledge and faith in the medieval Near East. Jonathan Berkey’s book illuminates the popular culture of religious storytelling. It draws on chronicles, biographical...

Party Building in the Modern Middle East

By Michele Penner Angrist

Why was Turkey - alone of all the modern states that emerged from the Ottoman Empire - the only Middle Eastern country to evolve lasting competitive political institutions? While democratic processes grew steadily in Turkey...

Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey

By Sibel Bozdogan, Resat Kasaba

In the first two decades after W.W.II, social scientist heralded Turkey as an exemplar of a 'modernizing' nation in the Western mold. Images of unveiled women working next to clean-shaven men, healthy children in school...

The City’s Pleasures

Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century

By Shirine Hamadeh

The City's Pleasures is the first historical investigation of the tremendous changes that affected the fabric and architecture of Istanbul in the century that followed the decisive return of the Ottoman court to the capital...