The Gingko Library: 16 books
East-West Divan
In Memory of Werner Mark Linz
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2014
This collection of scholarly essays on Egyptian culture, history, society, archeology, literature, art, and conservation is published in memory of Werner Mark Linz, who spent much of the latter part of his professional life as the Director of the American University in Cairo Press. East-West Divan...
Ottoman Explorations of the Nile
Evliya Çelebi’s Map of the Nile and The Nile Journeys in the Book of Travels (Seyahatname)
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2018
Before the time of Napoleon, the most ambitious effort to explore and map the Nile was undertaken by the Ottomans, as attested by two monumental documents: an elaborate map, with 475 rubrics, and a lengthy travel account. Both were achieved at about the same time—c. 1685—and both by the same man.
Evliya...
New Thinking in Islam
The Jihad for Democracy, Freedom and Women’s Rights
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2016
In Rethinking Islam, Katajun Amirpur argues that the West’s impression of Islam as a backward-looking faith, resistant to post-Enlightenment thinking, is misleading and—due to its effects on political discourse—damaging. Introducing readers to key thinkers and activists—such as Abu Zaid, a...
Making the Modern Middle East
Second Edition
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2014
A century ago, as World War I got underway, the Middle East was dominated, as it had been for centuries, by the Ottoman Empire. But by 1923, its political shape had changed beyond recognition, as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the insistent claims of Arab and Turkish nationalism and Zionism...
Memories of a Bygone Age
Qajar Persia and Imperial Russia 1853-1902
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2016
Set against the backdrop of Iran’s struggle against the rising powers of Russia and Britain, the memoirs of Mirza Riza Khan Arfa’-ed-Dowleh—otherwise known as Prince Arfa (1853–1902)—are packed with picaresque adventures as the prince tells the story of his rise from humble provincial beginnings...
The First World War and Its Aftermath
The Shaping of the Middle East
Language: English
Release Date: September 15, 2015
Think of a map of World War I and chances are that map will be of Europe—but the First World War had just as heavy an impact on the Middle East, shaping the region into what we know it as today. This book gathers together leading scholars in the field to examine this impact, which is crucial to...
On Literature and Philosophy
The Non-Fiction Writing of Naguib Mahfouz: Volume 1
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2015
Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most important writers in contemporary Arabic literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1988 (the only Arab writer to win the prize thus far), his novels helped bring Arabic literature onto the international stage. Far fewer people know his nonfiction works, however—a...
Pagan Christmas
Winter Feasts of the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2017
This authoritative work sheds light on the religious world of the Kalasha people of the Birir valley in the Chitral district of Pakistan, focusing on their winter feasts, which culminate every year in a great winter solstice festival. The Kalasha are not only the last example of a pre-Islamic culture...
Essays of the Sadat Era
The Non-fiction Writing of Naguib Mahfouz: Volume II
Language: English
Release Date: June 15, 2016
When Naguib Mahfouz quit his job as a civil servant in 1971, a Nobel Prize in literature was still off on the horizon, as was his global recognition as the central figure of Arab literature. He was just beginning his post on the editorial staff of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, and elsewhere in...
Democracy is the Answer
Egypt's Years of Revolution
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2015
As the Egyptian revolution unfolded throughout 2011 and the ensuing years, no one was better positioned to comment on it—and try to push it in productive directions—than best-selling novelist and political commentator Alaa Al-Aswany. For years a leading critic of the Mubarak regime, Al-Aswany...
by
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2016
The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 opened the way for enormous change in Persia, heralding the modern era and creating a model for later political and cultural movements in the region. Broad in its scope, this multidisciplinary volume brings together essays from leading scholars in Iranian Studies...
Javanmardi
The Ethics and Practice of Persianate Perfection
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2018
Javanmardi is one of those Persian terms that is frequently mentions in discussions of Persian identity, and yet its precise meaning is difficult to comprehend. A number of equivalents have been offered, including chivalry and manliness, and while these terms are not incorrect, javanmardi transcends...
Religious Imaginations
How Narratives of Faith are Shaping Today’s World
Language: English
Release Date: December 15, 2018
Market globalization, technology, climate change, and postcolonial political forces are together forging a new, more modern world. However, caught up in the mix are some powerful religious narratives that are galvanizing peoples and reimagining – and sometimes stifling – the political and social...
The Age of Aryamehr
Late Pahlavi Iran and Its Global Entanglements
Language: English
Release Date: July 15, 2018
The reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941–79), marked the high point of Iran’s global interconnectedness. Never before had Iranians felt the impact of global political, social, economic, and cultural forces so intimately in their national and daily lives, nor had Iranian...
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