For centuries following the fall of Rome; Western Europe was a benighted backwater; a world of subsistence farming; minimal literacy; and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving; dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to visit cities like Baghdad or Antioch. There; philosophers; mathematicians; and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge; as well as keeping alive the works of Plato and Aristotle. When the best libraries in Europe held several dozen books; Baghdad's great library; The House of Wisdom; housed four hundred thousand. Jonathan Lyons shows just how much "Western" ideas owe to the Golden Age of Arab civilization.Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims; a handful of intrepid Christian scholars; hungry for knowledge; traveled East and returned with priceless jewels of science; medicine; and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. In this brilliant; evocative book Jonathan Lyons reveals the story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.
#2933716 in Books University Press of Mississippi 2010-02-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.02 x .71 x 5.98l; 1.03 #File Name: 1604738022304 pages
Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Outstanding Book on the Heroes of the Great MigrationBy Katherine van WormerAn important and often overlooked aspect of human labor was domestic service. In my writings on the subject; I found this source extremely helpful. Hopefully; the public interest that has been centered on the slave period will pay more attention to the Jim Crow period that followed Reconstruction in the South; and on the lives of these heroic women who led the way for their races advances. Making a Way out of No Way shows us; through oral histories; of the journey that was; had to be; taken.
