Italy and the Islamic World

Ali Humayun Akhtar's Italy and the Islamic World: From Caesar to Mussolini is an ambitious and innovative work of transnational history. It distils an expansive body of scholarship and research into an engaging and accessible narrative that illustrates the centrality and the enduring impact of Italy's long and fruitful relationship with the Islamic world from Imperial Rome to Fascist Italy and beyond. --Eric Dursteler, Brigham Young University This book fills a gap in existing literature and a textbook in English with the focus on Italy and the Islamic World will be especially welcome by undergraduate history and culture teachers. --Ines Asčeric-Todd, University of Edinburgh 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. --Carole Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh