Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands

Konrad Hirschler is Professor of Middle Eastern History at Universität Hamburg (Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures) and previously held professorships of Middle Eastern History at SOAS (University of London) and Freie Universität Berlin. He is amongst others author of award-winning books such as A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture – The Library of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī (EUP, 2020), Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library (EUP, 2016), The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices (EUP, 2012) and Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors (Routledge, 2006).

• List of Illustrations; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Reading and Writerly Culture; 2. A City is Reading: Popular and Scholarly Reading Sessions; 3. Learning to Read: Popularisation and the Written Word in Children’s Schools; 4. Local Endowed Libraries and their Readers; 5. Popular Reading Practices; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

This is an impressive book … clearly written and argued … and of particular interest to scholars of textual practices elsewhere in the medieval world, both Arab and beyond.