Catalogue

Catalogue
Author: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1912
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Lost Enlightenment

Lost Enlightenment
Author: S. Frederick Starr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 694
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691165858

The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

I Recall: Collections and Recollections

I Recall: Collections and Recollections
Author: Robert Henderson Croll
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

I Recall: Collections and Recollections is a memoir by Robert Henderson Croll. Croll was an Australian author, lyricist, bushwalker, and civic servant. Excerpt: "Central Australia, where I have now been five times, was long a place of desire. When my Sister Elizabeth and her husband, Albert Watts, went to live at Quorn, a township sitting at the foot of the Flinders Range in South Australia, I paid her two visits. They quickened my wish to see more of the remarkable country on the edge of which Quorn is placed. That was some forty years ago. The first, a Spring journey, left two vivid memories. One is of the seemingly endless fields of young wheat which made much of South Australia so beautiful just then; the other is of a shooting trip to which we were invited. Our hosts were two young men of the district, tall and powerful, sons of a German settler. The conveyance was a light open cart with one fixed seat which held the two brothers. Behind them, a board rested its ends on the sides of the cart and was secured to the front seat by a stout rope."