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The House of Wisdom
- How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
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The House of Wisdom
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Summary
Here is the remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy, and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. 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 catch even a glimpse of the scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle.
In the royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House of Wisdom boasted as many as 400,000. Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance.
In this brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much Western culture owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kafka's Crow
- 21-06-17
Simply superb
That is the type of history I enjoy the most. It shows how the whole of humanity has worked together for the betterment of society. It shows what unites us all and shows a better way to work together in future by looking at our mutual past.
Highly recommended!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Tomi Strömberg
- 30-01-18
Good book, bad reading
Comprehensive on the subject and really interesting. too bad that The narrator the sounds like a robot.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- paul
- 23-01-12
Misleading and disappointing
As a person with an interest in Arabia i bought this book hoping to learn something about the Arab people and their contribution to science and culture . Instead you get to listen to a badly written and poorly read narrative, which has little of substance and seems to be poorly veiled religious propaganda. Sadly for this reason it probably confirms the stereo type rather than its intended purpose of opening the eyes of the world to the contribution of the region to modern science and culture and in this they have done the Arab world an injustice
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9 people found this helpful