Get Ready for Winter Weather The Rosie Effect The Rosie Effect The Rosie Effect The Rosie Effect The Rosie Effect Shop Men's Running Shoes Shop Men's Running Shoes Shop All Men's Learn more nav_sap_plcc_6M_fly_blackbelt Sinclair New Year in Beauty Shop now Digital Week Warner 2015 Preview Shop Sports Deals Shop Sports Deals Shop Exercise & Fitness Toys & Games Deals Fire phone now available unlocked Shop Fire HD 6 Shop Amazon Fire TV Year-End Kindle Daily Deals
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939: 0 and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
Qty:1
  • List Price: $54.99
  • Save: $2.75 (5%)
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comment: All pages complete and readable but expect some worn edges, covers, and creases. There may be some excess highlighting as well. Eligible for FREE Super Saving Shipping! Fast Amazon shipping plus a hassle free return policy mean your satisfaction. Readable copy.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Sell yours for a Gift Card
We'll buy it for $9.40
Learn More
Trade in now
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 2 images

Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 Paperback – August 31, 1983

ISBN-13: 978-0521274234 ISBN-10: 0521274230

Buy New
Price: $52.24
21 New from $45.75 18 Used from $24.00 1 Collectible from $128.22
Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
Hardcover, Import
"Please retry"
$35.00
Paperback
"Please retry"
$52.24
$45.75 $24.00
Unknown Binding
"Please retry"
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student


Frequently Bought Together

Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 + Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics)
Price for both: $76.23

Buy the selected items together
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Best Books of the Month
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 406 pages
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press (August 31, 1983)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0521274230
  • ISBN-13: 978-0521274234
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #394,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  •  Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?


Editorial Reviews

Review

'This classic work is as fresh and interesting as when it was first published thirty years ago. It continues to command the field.' Charles Issawi, Princeton University

Book Description

This reissue again makes available Hourani's comprehensive study of the roots of Arab nationalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It focuses on the movement of ideas in two countries, Egypt and Lebanon. The author has written a new preface that puts new emphasis on research and interpretation.

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
5 star
5
4 star
1
3 star
0
2 star
0
1 star
0
See all 6 customer reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful By Hussain Abdul-Hussain on February 9, 2006
Format: Paperback
This book is an extensive version of Hisham Sharabi's Arab Intellectuals. It highlights the reaction of the Arab intellectual circles to the expanding European influence that had reached the Arab world by the early 19th century.

Hourani, however, presents a more thorough description of the life and thought of the most prominent Arab thinkers of the time including Jamaluddine Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdo among others as opposed to Sharabi's brief account on the life and works of these people.

Despite the academic nature of this work, grasping what's in it is easy and not at all complicated. Hourani's narration is well-researched and elegant while his translation of the original texts is also remarkable. The end result is an accurate account that invites the admiration of the readers.

This book is so much needed for those who are interested to understand the evolution of Arab thought over the past two centuries and how this evolution was interrupted with the discovery of oil and the advent of imperialism.
1 Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful By L. King on May 23, 2014
Format: Paperback
A well written exposition on the influence and reaction to the European Enlightenment during the closing chapters of the Ottoman empire through the eyes of its intellectual elites.

It begins with a wonderfully nuanced view of regional Arab differences then continues with the ideas and personalities of the 1st generation of reformers of the 1800s, Rifa'a al-Tahtwai an Egyptian writer who wrote about reconciling French and Islamic philosophic ideas; Khayr al-Din a Circassian and career politician in Constantinople who, after serving as Prime Minister of Tunis in the 1870s became Grand Vizier in 1878 and along with Midhat Pasha promoted the 2nd wave of Tanzimat reforms; and the influential Lebanese Christian novelist and commentator Butrus al-Bustani originally Maronite but converted to Protestantism by American missionaries and who embodied their ideals of progressive reform in an Arabized context. This is followed by a full chapter on the somewhat wild and peripatetic Jamal al-Afghani who, though he wrote little down was, in his unfruitful search for an ideal Islamic ruler in the mode of Hobbes' Leviathan.

However it is Muhammad `Abduh, a confidant of al-Afghani in Paris, later Mufti of Egypt and a director of the prestigious Islamic Al-Azhar Univerity that Hourani selects as a pivotal figure. He represents the liberal progressive POV for his day. In practical terms he issued a wide range of modernizing fatwas and in 1856 established a unified system of courts that were based on secular law yet drawing from Sharia.
Read more ›
Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful By Gogol on October 10, 2007
Format: Paperback
Hourani and Hitti have always been the darlings of modern Western (American at least) thought on the Middle East and while Hitti may cloud much of what he writes with a bizzare form of Lebanese nationalism that is equally as far fetched as Turkish, Arab, Persian and Slav nationalism that have done little but bring misery to those nations. Hourani on the other hand is a little more down to earth and while this book may have its faults until someone else comes out with better it remains the best of its kind.

The book covers the history of Arab reform in the latter part of the Ottoman Empire, I have no idea what point a previous reviewer was trying to make about the Portuguese conquest of parts of Moghul India (he seems to have failed to point out the Portugues also had colonies in present day Morocco and Muslim East Africa also) as around the same time the Ottomans (who he wrongly calls a 'Turkish' empire) had conqured much of Eastern Europe and their Tatar allies much of Russia. If only Americans would stop to look beyond their own narrow history and even give a glance to Europes history.

Hourani points out the foundations of the Arab nationalist movement were from to some extent a Christian background and how the teachings of Islamist reformers such as Afghani and Abduh (formerly a darling of the Ottoman Caliphs) became one and the same with the ideas of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism.

Hourani gives extensive detail into the lives of Afghani and especially Abduh and just where they took much of their inspiration from.
Read more ›
14 Comments Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again