The Republic of Arabic Letters

Deeply thoughtfulA delight. * The Economist * A closely researched and engrossing study of a subset of the Republic of Lettersthose scholars who, having learned Arabic, used their mastery of that difficult language to interpret the Quran, study the career of Muhammad, write the history of medieval Islam and introduce Europeans to the masterpieces of Arabic literature[Bevilacqua] has joined the ranks of a latter-day Republic of Arabic Letters that, in its scholarship and scholarly cooperation, is in no way inferior to its early-modern precursor. -- Robert Irwin * Wall Street Journal * What makes his study so groundbreaking, and such a joy to read, is the connection he makes between intellectual history and the material history of books. The re-evaluation of Islam that took place in the 17th century was closely connected to the acquisition of a much wider range of empirical sources than had been available before: it was the stockpiling of Oriental collections in the great libraries of Europe that enabled this work to take place. -- Gavin Jacobson * Financial Times * [A] tour de force study of the origins of modern Islamic scholarship in the West and its central role in the EnlightenmentBevilacquas extraordinary book provides the first true glimpse into this storyIt has taken until now for a book to tell the history of the origins of the Western study of Islam, as Bevilacquas does. Few have his linguistic and cultural expertise. He, like the tradition he describes, is a rarity. -- Jacob Soll * New Republic * Erudite and eloquentWhat [Bevilacquas] meticulous scholarship reveals is that between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries, the engagement with Islam really did transform Europeans understanding not only of Islam but also of their own Christian faith. -- Dmitri Levitin * London Review of Books * Anyone interested in the Enlightenment, or Islam, or both, should read Alexander Bevilacquas The Republic of Arabic Letters. -- Ritchie Robertson * Times Literary Supplement * Bevilacqua offers many surprising discoveries. One of them is that robust modern scholarship on Islam was shaped in an ostensibly improbable source, namely the VaticanIt is indicative of the Wests tortuous engagement with Islam that the foundation of European scholarship on Islam had to wait until now to be uncovered; it is all the more creditable that Bevilacqua has cleared the ground to build on it. -- Benedikt Koehler * Standpoint * A succinct and erudite overview of 17th- and 18th-century European scholars and writers who focused on Islamic studies. * Publishers Weekly * A closely researched and elegantly written bookThe Republic of Arabic Letters brings back to life a fascinating moment in intellectual history. -- Francis Ghiles * Arab Weekly * An extraordinary achievement, displaying wide-ranging and often profound scholarshipA book of great originality, based on an astonishingly wide array of sources, some previously uninvestigated, and all carefully interpretedWill be essential reading, not only for those concerned with Islam and the European Enlightenment, but for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the eighteenth century, or in the achievements of Arabists in the seventeenth. -- G. J. Toomer * Erudition and the Republic of Letters * The great names of the second phase [of reinterpretation of Islam] are known, among them secular men of letters like Montesquieu and Voltaire. The scholars of the first phase, however, are forgotten. The fascinating study of the American historian Alexander Bevilacqua studies these figures. Many of them were, unlike the Enlighteners after them, pious Christians or even clerics. They engaged on the basis of their faith with Islam, out of curiosity and as scholars. Thus Bevilacqua draws the portrait of a Republic of Letters dedicated to the Islamic-Arabic world that was not known until now. -- Rainer Hermann * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * FabulousB

Alexander Bevilacqua is Assistant Professor of History at Williams College.