Light from the East : How the Science of Medieval Islam helped to shape the Western World
Author(s): John Freely
Long before the European Renaissance, while the Western world was languishing in what was once called the “Dark Ages,” the Arab world was ablaze with the knowledge, invention, and creativity of its Golden Age. Through the astrologers, physicians, philosophers, mathematicians, and alchemists of the Muslim world, this knowledge was carried from Samarkand and Baghdad to Cordoba and beyond, influencing Western thinkers from Thomas Aquinas to Copernicus and helping to inspire the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance. John Freely’s spellbinding story is set against a background of the melting pot of the cultures involved and concludes with the decline of Islam’s Golden Age, which led the West to forget the debt it owed to the Muslim world and the influence of medieval Islamic civilization in forging the beginnings of modern science.
Review(s):
“John Freely’s Light from the East presents a thorough and wide-ranging account of pre-Islamic and Islamic science as well as of the considerable debt that Western scientific thinking owes to the Arabs.” - Robert Irwin, author of The Arabian Nights: A Companion
"This book will excite and inspire the general reader who is looking for a comprehensive but readable history of Islamic science" - Suite101.com"Anyone who has read John Freely's work before will know how vast is his scholarship and how pleasant he is to read... Freely's great virtue is his fantastic ability to take the work of esoteric highly specialized books and synthesize those books by turning them into more legible prose the general reader can appreciate, and indeed enjoy. [Light from the East] is the type you would want to take on a trans-oceanic flight and through reading it enjoy the ever-colourful world Freely is capable of painting. He positions himself as a superb storyteller... Freely's talent is a talent every historian would envy." - George Saliba, Columbia University, Journal of Early Modern History 16 (2012)
ISBN: 9781848854529