G. Maclean – författare

This book follows four Seventeenth-century Englishmen on their journeys around the Ottoman Empire while the British were, for the first time in history, becoming important players in the Mediterranean. This book shows that hostility between East and West is neither historical nor inevitable, but rather the result of selective memory.

Looking East examines how English encounters with the Ottoman Empire helped shape national identities and imperial ambitions. Engagingly written in an accessible style, this book demonstrates how the so-called 'conflict of civilizations' separating the Muslim East from the Christian West is a false and dangerous myth.

"The Rise of Oriental Travel" follows four 17th-century Englishmen on their journeys around the Ottoman Empire while it was still expanding westward and the British were, for the first time in history, becoming important players in the Mediterranean. Contrary to the hostile declamations of Protestant preachers, they all found much to admire, from the multi-culturalism of the Ottoman system to the food, weather, and styles of life. This book shows that hostility between East and West is neither historical or inevitable, but rather the result of selective memory.

What specifically distinguishes Restoration culture and society from what went before and came after? And how did early modern British women and men accommodate themselves to the dramatic historical changes of the seventeenth century? This study, which brings together recent work by leading historians as well as literary and cultural critics of the period, shows how the Restoration produced the concept of a national literature crucial to a new nationalist cultural enterprise: questions of national identity and difference, of what it meant to be English or British or both, came to be framed in terms of international trade and imperial ambition; and religious and royal authority gave way before the advance of a secular literary culture geared to the demands of a developing commercial and imperial nation.

Looking East examines how English encounters with the Ottoman Empire helped shape national identities and imperial ambitions. Engagingly written in an accessible style, this book demonstrates how the so-called 'conflict of civilizations' separating the Muslim East from the Christian West is a false and dangerous myth.

This book explores how the Renaissance entailed a global exchange of goods, skills and ideas between East and West. In chapters ranging from Ottoman history to Venetian publishing, from portraits of St George to Arab philosophy, from cannibalism to diplomacy, the authors interrogate what all too often may seem to be settled certainties, such as the difference between East and West, the invariable conflict between Islam and Christianity, and the 'rebirth' of European civilization from roots in classical Greece and Imperial Rome.