Dangerous Knowledge

Download or read book Dangerous Knowledge written by Robert Irwin and published by . This book was released on 2006-11-02 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Orientalism, who were the Orientalists, and how did Western scholars of Islamic culture come to be vilified as insidious agents of European imperialism? In [this] new history, [the author] answers this question with a detailed ... story of the motley crew of intellectuals and eccentrics who brought an understanding of the Islamic world to the West. In a narrative that ranges from an analysis of Ancient Greek perceptions of the Persians to a portrait of the first Western European translators of Arabic to the contemporary Muslim world's perceptions of the Western study of Islam, Irwin affirms the value of the Orientalists' legacy: not only for the contemporary scholars who have disowned it, but also for anyone committed to fostering the cross-cultural understanding which could bridge the real or imagined gulf between Islamic and Western civilization.-Dust jacket.