Italy and the Islamic World

Ali Humayun Akhtar is the author of 1368: China and the Making of the Modern World (Stanford UP, 2022). He is Professor of Global History & Islamic Arts and Humanities and Faculty in the Hillary Clinton Center for Women's Empowerment at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI), and Visiting Scholar of International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsGlossaryTimelinePreface1 Italians in the East (Levante) and the Making of Modern Europe2 After Caesar: The Roman Empire and its Arabian Frontiers3 The Formation of the Papal State during the Early Caliphates4 A New Turn to Carthage (Tunisia) and the Start of the Crusades5 Pisan Trade Hubs from Seville to Crusader Syria6 Genoese Commerce across the Habsburg-Ottoman Mediterranean7 The Venetian Republic Turns Global8 Florentine Commerce and the Renaissance9 Livornans in North Africa during Italian Unification10 Italian Citizens between Rome and the East (Levante)11 The Last Levantines (Gli Italiani Levantini)Epilogue: Memories of the Levant in ExileNotesSources: Texts, Objects, ArtsIndex

This book is an ambitious and innovative work of transnational history, for its narrative extends for one and a half millennia: 476 – 1952 AD. Its careful scholarship is enhanced by impressive documentation in both European and Islamic languages (Italian, French, Arabic and Turkish), full of kaleidoscopic and arresting detail. An extensive glossary covers place names, famous persons and technical terminology. The book places certain Italian cities at the front and centre of international commerce over many centuries, linking Europe with key areas of the Middle East and North Africa, a feature with tap roots in the ancient world, revealing, for example, how Carthage and Arabia fostered a global trade between West and East. Later chapters are enlivened by European travellers’ accounts of the long contact between Italy and the Muslim world, documenting the commercial links that Venice and Florence established with the Mamluks of Cairo and the Ottomans of Istanbul. Time and again, the author demonstrates how the interface between Orient and Occident surprised, fascinated and enriched both cultures.