Bücher der Reihe Routledge Library Editions: Language & Literature of the Middle East

The chief argument of this book, first published in 1990, is that Ibn al-Haytham''s On the Configuration of the World is a non-technical expose of basic astronomical teachings: it was written in particular for those whose main interests were in the areas of philosophy and natural science and who, accordingly, had an interest in relating the mathematical devices employed by professional astronomers to the heavenly bodies mentioned in the philosophical literature. However, the primary reason for this publication is not the advancement of this thesis, but rather the presentation of the medieval texts themselves, normally so inaccessible to scholars and students alike.

With some 7000 entries in each language, this dictionary, first published in 1986, gives clear and comprehensive coverage of all vocabulary areas connected with defence, for military personnel and for anyone who is directly or indirectly involved in military technology. Areas covered extend throughout the sphere of the armed forces of the world, including arms and armaments, land-based weapons and equipment, aircraft, warships and submarines, as well as communications and training and terms in everyday use in the field.

Enormous political and social changes brought about by modernization have naturally found expression in the literatures of the Near and Middle East. The contributors to this book, first published in 1991, trace the development of modern literary sensibility, in Turkish, Arabic, Persian and modern Hebrew. It is argued that the period can be divided into three broad phases ΓÇô the age of translation after 1850, when formerly self-sufficient elites throughout the region began to reach out to the West for new ideas and stylistic models; the surge of romantic nationalism after the First World War and the decline of imperialism; and the modern period after 1950, a time of growing self-awareness and self-definition among writers against an often violent background of inter- and intra-state conflict. The product of different nations, races and traditions, there are nevertheless constant themes in the literatures of this period ΓÇô the colonial heritage, nationalism, justice, poverty and wealth, migration from country to city, confrontation between self and other, and between East and West, collapse and rebirth.