Overview

Renowned as great centres of learning, the cities of Baghdad and Isfahan were at the heart of the Islamic civilization as rich capital cities and centres of intellectual thought. Their distinct cultural voices inspired a unique historical dialogue, which finds new expression in Baghdad and Isfahan, the story of how knowledge was transmitted and transformed within Islamic lands, and then spread across Europe. Capturing the history of Baghdad and Isfahan from 750 to 1750, Elaheh Kheirandish draws on the voices of court astronomers, mathematicians, scientists, mystics, jurists, statesmen and Arabic and Persian translators and scholars to document the extensive and lasting contribution of sciences from Islamic lands to the history of science. Kheirandish bases her narrative on a unique medieval manuscript and other historical sources and the result is more than a thousand-year ‘tale of two cities’ – it is a city by city, and century by century, look at what it took to change the world. In a feat of travelogue and time travel, this unique book creates parallel stories with modern and historical characters, crossing cities worldwide, and capturing changes through time. Interweaving multiple narratives, histories, and futures, she charts the possible paths – formalized and serendipitous, lost and recovered – by which knowledge itself is translated and transmitted across time and cultures.

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9780755635108

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With this refreshing book, Kheirandish offers us a work that is both universal – for the way in which it embraces the history of science –, and is also very personal in its organization, since the author has chosen to write this history by recounting two decades of a personal research itinerary within the Arab- Persian sciences. * Early Science and Medicine *

Author Information

Elaheh Kheirandish is a lecturer and researcher at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University, as well as graduate degrees in Mathematics and Science Education from the University of Rhode Island. Her undergraduate degrees are in Applied Mathematics and Chemistry. She has taught courses at several departments at Harvard University, curated exhibits at Harvard and Brown Universities, produced documentary films and digital projects, and lectured internationally. Her most recent affiliation is with the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, and the Agha Khan Program for Islamic Architecture.

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