Front cover image for Lost enlightenment : Central Asia's golden age from the Arab conquest to Tamerlane

Lost enlightenment : Central Asia's golden age from the Arab conquest to Tamerlane

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. -- Publisher website
Print Book, English, 2013
Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2013
History
xxxvii, 634 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm
9780691157733, 9780691165851, 9781400848805, 0691157731, 0691165858, 1400848806
840582136
The center of the world
Worldly urbanists, ancient land
A cauldron of skills, ideas, and faiths
How Arabs conquered Central Asia and Central Asia then set the stage to conquer Baghdad
East wind over Baghdad
Wandering scholars
Khurasan : Central Asia's rising star
A flowering of Central Asia : the Samanid dynasty
A moment in the desert : Gurganj under the Mamuns
Turks take the stage: Mahmud of Kashgar and Yusuf of Balasagun
Culture under a Turkic marauder : Mahmud's Ghazni
Tremors under the dome of Seljuk rule
The Mongol century
Tamerlane and his successors
Retrospective : the sand and the oyster