For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies

Description

'About nine parts erudite civil charm to one part blazing napalm ... wonderfully well-informed' Sunday Times Robert Irwin's history of Orientalism leads from Ancient Greece to the present. He shows that, whether making philological comparisons between Arabic and Hebrew, cataloguing the coins of Fatimid Egypt or establishing the basic chronology of Harun al-Rashid's military campaigns against Byzantium, scholars have been unified not by politics or ideology but by their shared obsession. For Lust of Knowing is an extraordinary, passionate book, both a sustained argument and a brilliant work of original scholarship.

Robert Irwin is a publisher and writer of fiction and non-fiction. His works of non-fiction include The Arabian Nights, Islamic Art, Night & Horses & the Desert and The Alhambra.